Still Waters 2point7b: How to Fight Zombies
by RedPBass
Summary: Years have passed, and Class 3-A has just graduated from high school. Now, Misora's relaxed life is about to get turned upside down as she gets recalled to Rome. Final chapter is up, and everything comes to a head. This should be interesting...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing except what I made up for this story.

* * *

April 10th, 2007, Mahora, several weeks after Negi's first class's high school graduation...

* * *

"Misora, you are being recalled back to Rome," Sister Shakti said as Misora loitered around near the confessional.

Misora just blinked and looked at the other woman as if she had grown a second head. "Er…excuse me?"

Sister Shakti gave her a rare sympathetic look and repeated her earlier statement. "They are recalling you to Rome."

Misora's usual carefree expression disappeared. "How can they 'recall' me to Rome if I've never even been there? Is something wrong? I'm not being excommunicated or something am I?" she asked worriedly.

Shakti shook her head. "No…I don't know anything about it other than what I have told you. But…" she said quietly, looking around quickly to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. "When someone is recalled to Rome, it is often in order to test them for some special mission or a promotion. It happened to me when I was your age, and it happened to several of my friends as well. Just behave yourself and you should be fine," she finished. "Now, here are the directions to the location where you will meet up with your contact. I understand she is a nun temporarily stationed in Japan as some sort of cultural exchange program within the church. Good luck Misora, and be sure to tell Cocone before you leave."

* * *

And that was how Misora found herself at Shibuya Station at 8:30 in the morning a week later, waiting at the statue of Hachiko for her contact to show up.

Misora chewed her gum for a moment, then started blowing a bubble. She watched as it grew bigger and bigger, until it was almost as big as her head, and then…it popped and she jerked her head back belatedly, unable to avoid the wet bubblegum now sticking to her face. She sighed and began the work of peeling it off. She was halfway through when she heard someone laughing.

"What's so funny?" she demanded as she pulled off a particularly large chunk of gum.

"Well, it's not every day you see a sight like that," the stranger said, grinning at her. Misora looked her over and frowned. The woman seemed to be in her late teens or possibly early twenties, wore a nun's clothing in an odd shade of blue belonging to an order she didn't recognize, and was of average height and build, though her chest was quite well developed. Misora sighed and grumbled something under her breath about cows.

"Yeah yeah, go ahead and laugh. Haven't you ever had bubble gum explode in your face?" Misora asked testily.

The woman shrugged and adjusted her glasses. "So, you're Misora-chan, right?"

Misora cocked an eyebrow. "That's The Great Misora-sama to you. What's your name?"

The woman seemed amused as she answered. "You can call me Ciel; I'll be your escort back to Rome."

"Ok, Ciel-san. Please take care of me," Misora said, bowing slightly.

Ciel grinned at her as she returned the bow. "So how old are you, Misora-san?" she asked as the two headed for the street.

"Eighteen, I just graduated high school. You?"

"Twenty," Ciel lied. "Have you ever been out of the country before?"

Misora shrugged. "Not really. I _have_ been all over Japan, though."

They got into a taxi and rode in silence for a few minutes before Ciel spoke again.

"I'm sure you'll find Rome to be quite different from Japan, but stick with your friends and you'll be fine," she said reassuringly.

Misora just rolled her eyes. Some people thought they knew everything…

* * *

Misora grumbled quite a bit at the economy class seating, and even more so at the annoying brat kicking the back of her seat on the first leg of the flight.

*bump* *bump* *bump*

Misora clenched her teeth together to keep from saying something she might regret, and resolved to suffer through it. No point in making a scene.

*bumpbumpbumpbump*

N-no point in—

*BUMP* "Hehehe~"

No p—

This time, her thoughts were interrupted by a small toy bouncing off her head, followed by a childish giggle.

"Hehehehe~"

She clenched her fists, unhooked the seatbelt, and—

"Excuse me, ma'am. I'm sorry to ask, but would you like to trade seats with us? It's my friend here's first trip on a airplane, and she is quite nervous with the view from this window," Ciel said pleasantly to the mother of the brat seated behind Misora.

"Oh, sure, why not. You seem like a nice young lady, where are you two going?"

Misora looked at her traveling companion with a newfound respect as Ciel chatted with the woman as if they were old friends. When she was again seated comfortably, now behind the stupid brat, Misora gave the seat in front of her a sharp kick and sat back comfortably, a look of contentment on her face.

"That is rude, you know," Ciel said quietly. Misora glanced over at her and spotted the grin the woman was trying to hide.

"Yeah, and he deserved it," she replied, failing to hold back her own grin. "Thanks, by the way," she added after a moment.

"Don't worry about it," Ciel said as she took out a book to read.

Misora decided to settle in and get comfortable. No point in dwelling on things after all, and they still had a long way to go to get to Rome.

* * *

Misora slowly swam back up into consciousness as someone shook her shoulder.

"Wha…? What is it?" she asked groggily. She had been having a nice dream about strawberry shortcake and a more adult Negi-sensei.

"Misora-san, we're here," Ciel said as she let go of Misora's shoulder.

Misora sat up, rubbing her eyes. "What time is it?"

"Local or Japan?" Ciel asked, her grin coming through in her words.

"Local," Misora said as she looked out the window. The sun was pretty low…

"6:45 p.m., Central European Time," Ciel replied.

"Ugh, feels like it's midnight or something," Misora complained.

"Come on, get your things together, it's time to go."

Misora grunted in reply.

* * *

The taxi ride was fairly short, and Misora was quite surprised when the car pulled up outside what looked to be a regular apartment building with half a dozen scooters in various states of repair parked outside.

The driver said something in Italian to Ciel, who responded in kind and produced a handful of Euros. The two argued for a moment while Misora looked around at the neighborhood in a daze as her internal clock struggled to adjust to the time difference between Japan and Rome. Her body was telling her many, many hours had passed, but the sun said otherwise, and it was really messing with her head.

"Come on, let's go introduce ourselves," Ciel said, snapping Misora back to reality.

"Huh? Oh, yeah…" she said as she grabbed her things and scooted across the back seat. She staggered upon getting out of the car, but Ciel was there to steady her. "Thanksh…" Misora said.

"Any time," Ciel said as she took some of Misora's bags and grabbed her hand. "Come on. Let's go in, you need some sleep."

Misora quietly let Ciel lead her up the wide stone stairs and into the building. Inside, a woman behind a desk looked up at them disinterestedly and pointed to a heavy book lying open on a small table in the middle of the room. Ciel nodded and led Misora over to the book. She signed her name, then passed the elaborate, carved ivory pen to Misora. She looked over the names in the book, struggling to make them out. It appeared that the correct way to sign your name in this place was with as many loops and flowery designs as possible. A full half of the names on the page were totally unreadable! She wrote her name in roman letters in as flowery a way as she could, and placed the pen back into its holder. She glanced at the line where Ciel had signed her name. 'Elesia?' The last name was written too flowery for her to read. Misora started to ask Ciel about it, but she was speaking with the woman at the desk, who passed her a key. Ciel turned and waved Misora forward.

Misora approached awkwardly. "Ciel-sempai? Did you need something?"

Ciel glanced at her. "I just need to introduce you. Proper procedure and all that," she said absently.

Misora stood there awkwardly while Ciel dropped back into Italian. 'Ah…I wish I had paid more attention to Sister Shakti's lessons back home…' she thought to herself. She was looking at an elaborate metal paperweight on the desk when she heard her name mentioned and looked up to see Ciel and the woman looking at her.

"What? Is something wrong?"

"No," Ciel said. "Misora-san, this is Rachele Giordano. She works the reception desk here."

Misora nodded and bowed to the woman. "Nice to meet you," she said awkwardly, knowing the woman wouldn't understand her words.

Much to her surprise, Rachele replied in…rough...Japanese. "You, nice to meet. Today."

Misora looked to Ciel, who grinned crookedly. "She only knows a little. Come on, let's get to our room. You've got a big day tomorrow, and I have a hearing to sit through."

Misora bowed quickly to the woman at the desk, who nodded in return, and followed Ciel up the stairs.

"So…I thought we were going to the Vatican?" Misora said after they had climbed a few flights.

Ciel looked back at her, grinning in amusement. "Not a chance, not for someone of your rank. No offense, but you have to work long and hard to be found worthy of a place there," she said. "You're going to have to settle for the School for Special Skills for now," she said as she stopped on the fifth floor landing. "Come on, this way."

Misora followed her through a hallway and waited, yawning, while she unlocked a door.

"Come on in, Misora, welcome to your new home," Ciel said while Misora blinked owlishly.

"What…?"

"Your roommate will be in later tonight, but you've lived in a dorm half your life, so it should be fine. Here, I'll put your things here," Ciel said, putting Misora's bags on the floor next to one of the beds. "I have to go now, I need to get a few hours of sleep in one of the guest rooms downstairs, and then attend a hearing. Goodbye Misora-chan, and good luck."

The door shut behind Ciel and, just like that, Misora was abandoned, left alone in a strange city in a strange land, surrounded by people who spoke a language she didn't understand.

As far as Misora was concerned, however, all of that was secondary to the extreme exhaustion that had been building since her arrival. So, with nothing else screaming for her attention, she stripped off her clothes and climbed into the bed, not even noticing how hard the mattress was as she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Misora swam up from the depths of a bizarre dream about flying penguins and wondered where she was for a moment. She glanced around the unfamiliar room, shrouded in shadows, and saw the lump of another person under the covers of the other bed.

She reached over the edge of the bed, fumbled around for a moment in the pile of clothes she had worn the day before until she found the lump of her cell phone. She dragged it out of the pocket it had been in and flicked it open to look at the time. What she saw didn't make much sense, however.

"7:30...?" she muttered. A quick glance at the curtained window showed no sign of the sun, and it took her sleep-addled mind a moment to recall that she wasn't in Japan anymore. "Oh, right. Rome." The person in the other bed began to move, so Misora stopped talking to herself and flicked her cell phone shut. The other person rolled over and settled down, and Misora relaxed and laid back down. Sleep was long in coming, but she drifted off eventually.

* * *

The soft sounds of someone attempting to be quiet dragged Misora from the depths of sleep and a dream about popsicles some time later.

She cracked her eyes open and the first thing she saw was some rather unattractive blue and green striped wallpaper that had last been bright and new just after the second world war. There was a thump behind her and someone muttered something that sounded like a curse; apparently they sounded the same no matter what language you spoke.

Misora quickly closed her eyes and carefully schooled her breathing in an attempt to look as if she was still asleep. She wasn't quite ready to face her new roommate and wanted some time to adjust to her new surroundings first.

The other person fumbled around for what seemed like hours before moving over to stand beside Misora's bed. Misora forced herself to remain still while the stranger looked down at her for a moment, and almost heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the sound of retreating footsteps, followed by the door opening and closing, and then she was alone in the room.

Now, to wait until her unknown roommate had left the building…

* * *

Some time later, Misora put on some clean clothes, straightened up her bed, and set out for the lobby and the only person around who knew some Japanese. She passed several people in the halls, realizing for the first time on a deep level that _she_ was the foreigner in this place, not these other people. It was strange…she found it difficult to wrap her mind around the fact, and the realization of her status here made her feel very small.

She started down the narrow stairs, but had to press herself against the wall awkwardly to make room for another girl her age who was coming up. The red haired girl had a serious, no nonsense air about her, and Misora found herself staring for a moment. Here was someone who was totally focused in her life...it was sort of intimidating. The girl looked at her curiously as she made eye contact, raising an eyebrow, but Misora looked away quickly and the girl continued on her way.

* * *

The lobby was nearly deserted, and, unfortunately, the receptionist from the day before had been replaced by another woman, who looked up at her with a surprised expression. Another, older woman leaning over the desk also gave her an odd look, and asked something in Italian.

"Um…does anyone here speak Japanese?" Misora asked hopefully.

The two women looked at each other for a moment, and then turned back to Misora. The receptionist took a deep breath.

"Japanese. The language speak. Common fruit blue…uh…desu?" she said, trailing off.

Misora just gaped at the receptionist for a moment, then burst into laughter. The older woman standing by the desk grinned slightly while the receptionist clamped her mouth shut, looking offended and embarrassed and altogether abashed.

Misora managed to reign in her laughter after a moment and stood there, sheepishly wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. The older woman gave her a look that said 'Are you done yet?', and Misora tried again, turning to the receptionist.

"I'm sorry," she said in Japanese as slowly and clearly as she could, and gave a little bow. The woman shook her head as if to say it didn't matter.

The older woman took over. "Teresa Rossi," she said, planting a hand on her chest. She gestured to the receptionist. "Aurelia Russo." The she gestured to Misora, a questioning look on her face.

"Er…Oh! I see. My name is Kasuga Misora," Misora said politely. They looked at her blankly, so she repeated herself, more slowly. "Kasuga Misora."

The older woman repeated her name, only slightly mangling it, and Misora nodded. The two women said something to each other in Italian.

'That's getting very annoying,' Misora thought. She hadn't realized just how irritating it could be when you couldn't tell if someone was saying hello or threatening to sue you. She watched as the woman opened a closet and took out a couple of motorcycle helmets. She tossed one to Misora, who caught it effortlessly, and motioned for her to follow.

Having no other choice, Misora followed the woman outside and over to the row of scooters she had seen the day before when she arrived. Most of them were gone now; only four remained. The woman headed for an old two-seater Vespa and put her helmet on. She got on and looked at Misora, waiting.

Misora put the helmet on and climbed on awkwardly behind the woman. There was nowhere to put her hands, so she just sat there for a moment until the woman reached back and pulled Misora's arms forward, putting them around her waist. Misora blushed in embarrassment, trying to keep from getting too close to the woman as she backed the scooter up. She only had a few seconds to look around before the woman blasted off at breakneck speed and she clamped on for dear life. She felt the woman's body shake, and realized she was laughing as she darted in and out of traffic.

After a minute or so, Misora managed to work up the nerve to open her eyes and see the city that would be her home for the next year or so. Elaborate stone facades, plazas, fountains…it was quite impressive. She happened to glance down a wide street as the scooter darted across and was shocked to see what could only be the Coliseum at the far end.

"Was that the Coliseum? It was, wasn't it!" Misora said excitedly. The woman said something in Italian and laughed again, and took another turn. The sheer amount of old buildings was amazing, and Misora almost fell off the Vespa as they drove past a big, ancient stone temple on top of a hill. Seeing that type of thing in a book was a lot different from seeing it in person…!

Soon, though, they entered a more normal area of the city, and the ancient buildings were lost from view. Misora settled down, trying to balance correctly as the scooter made turns here and there. This part of the city wasn't unlike Mahora, and it made her feel a little homesick.

Eventually, they pulled up in front of a large building that looked sort of like a school, or maybe a university. The woman tapped Misora's arms, which were still wrapped around her waist, and Misora let go and climbed off the scooter, her legs wobbly. The woman took off her helmet and looked at Misora, who quickly took off her helmet and handed it over. The woman hung the two helmets on the scooter, nodded at Misora, and started climbing the wide stone stairs up to the building.

"Not wheel chair accessible, huh?" Misora muttered as she followed, looking around. Sure enough, there weren't wheelchair ramps or anything to allow access to the front door except these huge stairs…

When they reached the top, the woman looked back smiling slightly, and seemed quite surprised that Misora wasn't gasping for breath after the steep stair climb.

"Something wrong?" Misora asked, grinning, but the woman just nodded at her approvingly and continued on into the building.

* * *

The inside of the building was magnificent…high, elaborately decorated ceilings, marble statues on pedestals, with huge paintings and tapestries decorating the walls. Elaborate mosaics depicting all sorts of bizarre creatures and scenes made up the floor, and the whole scene exuded a sense of great age and beauty.

The woman walked ahead, the steady tapping of her footsteps loud in the deserted hall, and Misora followed quickly, her footsteps echoing crazily as she ran to catch up.

The woman led her into a side room, where she nodded at a secretary and continued on into another, slightly larger room where a man in a simple black suit sat behind a desk, typing on a computer. He motioned for them to take a seat, but continued typing for a moment.

Misora waited impatiently, her hands clutched together in her lap, while the other woman simply sat there next to her. 'That's very rude…the least he could do is put the computer aside until we're gone,' she thought.

After a moment, the man finished and looked up at them, saying something in Italian. Misora couldn't stop the sigh that escaped, and the man gave her a bemused look in response. She looked away sheepishly, but soon the conversation between the two adults turned to her. She heard her name mentioned several times, and then the man turned back to the computer for a moment. He clicked and typed and messed around, then gave Misora a serious, measuring look.

"What? Is something wrong?" Misora asked worriedly, looking from one to the other. The woman from the dorm building was giving her an odd look, as if she hadn't really seen her before.

The man pressed a button on the desk and spoke into a small microphone for a moment, then rose and, much to Misora's surprise, bowed to her. _Nobody_ had bowed to her here…!

"What, what's going on?" Misora asked frantically as she half-rose from her chair. "What…?"

The woman took Misora's arm and said something that was probably supposed to be soothing, and then turned and left the room. Misora stood up and started to follow her, but the man behind the desk said something sharply and she stopped, looking back and forth between the door Teresa had gone through and the man. He gestured to another door off to the side.

'What on earth is going on here?' Misora thought frantically as she opened the door. This room was much smaller, containing only a table with six chairs and a TV hanging in the corner. The TV was turned off. The man said something she couldn't understand and she jumped; she hadn't realized he had followed her in. He gestured to the chair on the far end of the table, so she took a seat awkwardly.

"I'm not in trouble, am I?" she asked.

The man gave her an odd look and shook his head to indicate he didn't understand what she had said, and then left her alone in the room.

"What's going on…?"

* * *

A good thirty minutes later, the door opened and two people entered the room. Misora brightened up considerably upon seeing Ciel, but the woman gave her a severe look and shook her head slightly to indicate she should be quiet. The man that followed her in looked to be some sort of priest. The two of them stood there looking at her for a moment.

"What?" Misora asked.

"You're supposed to stand," Ciel said, the corner of her mouth twitching upward in amusement in spite of her stiff expression.

Misora stood up quickly, apologizing even though she knew the older man standing before her couldn't understand her words.

He sat down carefully at the far end of the table and Misora looked to Ciel, who nodded and sat down in one of the side chairs.

"What's going on?" Misora asked as she took a seat.

"Funny you should ask that," Ciel replied. "I wanted to ask you the same thing. You never told me you were trying out for the Burial Agency."

"…Burial Agency?" Misora asked.

"…I guess I can yell at you later. Right now, there are more important things to do. This is the Bishop Marco Costa, currently in charge of the Secret Agencies. He will be testing you in various things today. Unfortunately," Ciel said, slight annoyance coming through in her tone, "he doesn't speak Japanese, so I am to act as an interpreter as part of my punishment. You should be proud, Misora. Not many applicants get to speak with the Bishop in person like this. You must be something special."

Misora gave her a look. "Something special? Me? Wait, what punishment?" She looked back and forth between the two as the bishop rifled through a folder full of papers before finally pulling several sheets out and placing them on the table before him. He produced a pen next, and began filling out some blanks in one form while Misora craned her neck to see. Ciel gave her a dirty look, so she stopped and sat back in her chair.

The next couple minutes were quite awkward as the three sat in near silence, the scratching of the bishop's pen across paper the only sound in the room.

Then, it stopped. Misora looked up to see the bishop looking at her, and quickly looked away. He said something, and she looked to Ciel for a translation.

"The Bishop wishes to tell you that you may relax. You are not on trial or in trouble in any way."

"Okay…" Misora said, completely unable to relax.

"First question: What is your name?"

Misora blinked. It appeared they would start at the very beginning. "Kasuga Misora."

"Second Question: What is your date of birth?"

* * *

The questioning continued for almost an hour, growing increasingly more bizarre as time went on. The subject matter changed from the usual, such as name and birthdate, to the more unusual, such as visions, trances, and similar things, to flat out secret things. When asked about practicing magic, Misora paused, thoughts of the Spanish Inquisition running through her mind.

"Something wrong?" Ciel asked after a moment. She saw the stricken look on Misora's face and sighed. "It's okay to practice magic, Misora. As long as you're not trying to supplant Christianity or worshiping idols or making deals with the devil. Well, for _this_ particular branch, anyway."

"…are you sure?" Misora asked.

Ciel sighed again and turned to the bishop, who had been watching curiously. He listened as Ciel explained, then grinned, took out an ancient wand, and held it up.

"Practe Bigi Nar, Vente," the old man said in a deep voice as Misora's eyes widened. A refreshing breeze swirled around the room for a moment as Ciel held down the stack of forms, and she smiled.

"I know about magic," she said simply as she produced her pactio card. Ciel and the Bishop's eyebrows went up in sync as she held it out. Ciel took it, looked it over very carefully, and passed it to the Bishop, who did the same. He made some notes on a separate form, carefully recording the information on the card, and then passed it back to Ciel, who gave it back to Misora.

"You really aren't the usual applicant, are you?" Ciel asked curiously.

Misora just grinned. "Hehe"

* * *

After the Bishop's questioning, Misora was led outside to what looked like a large sports field behind the building.

"Normally," Ciel said conversationally as she set up a large sun umbrella for the bishop and herself, "this part would be taken care of by lower ranked people. But apparently, the Bishop has taken a personal interest in you, Misora. Do your best."

Misora nodded. "Fine by me. Now come on, what's next? Track and Field is where I shine!"

* * *

That night, Misora barely managed to drag herself into the dorm building. '"Track and Field is where I shine!" pfft. I should've kept my mouth shut,' Misora thought grumpily. The receptionist from the day before was there, so Misora waved to her and slumped into a chair. The woman smirked and went back to the book she had been reading.

After resting for ten minutes or so, Misora dragged herself to her feet and started up the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing as she went. She made it as far as the second landing before she had to stop.

"Oww."

Misora grimaced as she rubbed her hip. 'Why did they make me climb that stupid rope anyway?' she grumbled to herself. She had lost her grip a little less than halfway up and fallen a good ten feet…it was a miracle she hadn't broken anything! "What kind of place are they running here anyway?" she complained aloud as she leaned back against the wall.

"Um…hehhh…Hello?" someone said uncertainly in bad Japanese.

Misora jumped; she hadn't realized anyone else was on the stairs. The girl standing across from her looked very exotic to Misora's eyes; but then again, so did most people here. She had dark brown hair and eyes and an olive complexion, and wore a rather understated T-shirt and pants. Something about her made Misora recall Cocone, which in turn made her recall the girl's sad expression upon learning she would be away for a year, and her throat tightened.

"Mi…Mi…sora?" the girl asked slowly.

Misora swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. "Kasuga Misora," she said, enunciating as clearly as she could.

The girl nodded. "Nina Bianchi," she said slowly and clearly, pointing at herself.

"Nina…Bi…Bi…Nina," Misora said, settling for the other girl's first name. She had no idea how Nina did that thing with her tongue to pronounce her last name, and she didn't quite feel like experimenting with it at the moment.

"So, since you can't understand me, I'll just complain to myself," Misora said aloud as she started climbing up the next flight of stairs. Nina watched her limp for a moment, then surprised her by throwing Misora's arm over her shoulder and supporting her like a crutch. Misora grinned when she regained her balance. The girl was taller than her, but not so tall as to make their current position _too_ uncomfortable. "Hey, thanks Nina."

The other girl smiled slightly and nodded.

"Oh, so you know a word here and there, huh?" Misora asked, not expecting an answer. "Good thing, 'cuz I don't speak a word of Italian! Hahaha! …oww."

Nina remained silent as she helped support Misora up the stairs. They finally reached Misora's floor, and she was ready to say goodbye when the girl left her leaning against a wall and skipped ahead to the dorm room Misora had spent the night in. Nina pulled out a key and unlocked the door, motioning for Misora to follow as she entered.

"No way," Misora said. "You're my roommate, aren'tcha?" she said as she limped up the hall and stopped in the open doorway, leaning against the side. Nina grinned awkwardly at her as she removed the bags from Misora's bed and straightened the covers.

"Thanks," Misora said tiredly as she limped across the room and flopped bonelessly on the bed, grinning like an idiot. "Aaah, that feels good."

Nina laughed quietly and sat down daintily on her own bed while Misora reached over the side of the bed and dragged up one of her bags.

"You remind me of somebody," she said as she rummaged through the bag. After a moment she found what she had been searching for, and pulled out several small picture frames, all but one of which she laid on the bed beside her. She gave the remaining picture a good long look, then held it out toward the other girl. Nina took it carefully. She looked at the small girl in the picture for a moment, then gave Misora a questioning look.

"Her name's Cocone," Misora said, grinning crookedly. "She's awesome, much cooler than me. She got tall in the last few years too…that's an old picture. She looks a lot like you, you know?"

Nina caught maybe two words, but she understood the tone in Misora's voice perfectly. The girl in the picture was as close as family, and that was all there was to it. Nina opened a drawer in the small table between the beds and took out a picture of her own. She passed it to Misora.

"Oh, you're a lot younger here," Misora said as she looked at the picture. Nina was several years younger, maybe as young as eleven or twelve, looking at the photographer with big, solemn eyes as she posed in a school uniform next to a slightly older, smiling girl.

"Marie," Nina said, grinning crookedly herself in a way that was fast becoming familiar.

"Who's that? Your big sis? A cousin maybe?" Nina looked a lot more innocent, a lot less world-weary than Cocone had at that age. Then again, Cocone had gone through a lot before coming to Mahora, while as far as she could tell, it looked like Nina had had a much more normal life up to now. She passed the picture back and leaned back painfully on the bed.

Nina said something in an amused tone of voice, and Misora looked over at her, wincing as she did so. 'Arg…my neck is killing me. I probably shouldn't have bragged about track and field,' she thought. But then again, how could she have known that Ciel and the Bishop would have her out in the sun ALL FREAKING DAY, running, jumping, climbing, doing backflips, and lifting heavy objects? They claimed it was all some sort of testing, but come on…was all that really necessary?

Someone knocked on the door and they both looked as it opened and the receptionist poked her head in. She said something in Italian ('I'm really going to have to learn the language,' Misora thought) and stepped into the room with two plates.

Misora sat up on her bed, suddenly forgetting her aches and pains, as she eyed the plate the receptionist held out to her. It held some kind of cake. Not only that, but some kind of _Italian_ cake, made in _Italy_, by an _Italian_…! That was like, ten times better!

Misora took it, grinning happily. "Mank mu!" she said a second later, mouth full of cake.

The receptionist grinned at her in amusement. "You're welcome," she said in halting Japanese.

'Well, this place isn't so bad after all,' Misora thought as she wolfed down the treat. _Man_, it was good! Not up to Satsuki's level of course, but not bad at all. Sure, the testing Ciel was putting her through was rough, and the training the woman had hinted at earlier was likely to be rougher still, but if she could have cake like this every day…_Italian_ cake, too!…then things wouldn't be _that_ bad.

* * *

As she lay awake in bed later that night, staring at the ceiling, her mind kept going back over the events of the day, her first full day in Rome. 'I'll need a good street map, first thing,' she thought sleepily. And some sort of pronunciation guide too, no doubt. Judging from some of the reactions she had gotten earlier, her pronunciation of place names was terrible. 'Got to learn the language too.' She knew a little English, less Latin, and had picked up a couple words of Italian, but other than Japanese, that was it. It appeared that few people here considered learning Japanese to be worthwhile. While that annoyed her in some deep way, she decided to let it go. She had never seen the need to learn Italian herself, so… But this could be bad. Thus far, she had only managed to confuse anyone she tried to communicate with other than Ciel, who wouldn't be around to translate for her forever.

'Besides, I have to learn how to ask for more of that cake,' she thought, recalling the cake the receptionist had brought. 'Rachele Giordano,' Misora thought, silently pronouncing the strange words as she did. The receptionist had seemed quite nice. _Everyone_ had, for that matter. It was strange, but made things a lot more comfortable.

'And when all of this is over, I'll go back to Japan and see Cocone again. Heh, and show off to Sister Shakti too,' she thought mischievously.

* * *

_Author's Notes_: So, there we go with the first chapter in the long-awaited Misora story. Be sure to read it all the way through so you don't end up wondering wtf is going on when Still Waters 3 rolls around. Also, keep in mind that the events here take place several years after Negi arrived at Mahora; the girls have all just graduated high school and are starting to go their own ways, though I doubt any of them could just forget everything that's happened. Now, as for Ciel, she's Ciel from Tsukihime. Just look it up on wikipedia for a quick rundown on her character. Oh, and who was the redhead Misora ran into on the stairs...?


	2. Chapter 2

April 25th, 2007

* * *

Misora sat awkwardly on the couch in the lobby of the dorm. It was 6:30 on a Wednesday night, and she was bored out of her skull. Her roommate Nina had gone out somewhere with one of her friends. She had asked Misora to come too, but she hadn't felt comfortable with meeting Nina's friend at the time, so she had declined.

Misora slumped further into the couch. 'I should have gone with her...'

She glanced up at the receptionist. "Hey Rachele, how ya doin'?"

Rachele glanced up at her, puzzling the words out. Misora waited impatiently.

"Hello, I'm end," she replied awkwardly in Japanese. Nina had told her about how she had used the receptionists Rachele and Aurelia to practice her Japanese; apparently they hadn't picked up anywhere near as much as Nina had...

Misora sighed. "You mean 'fine', I think..."

Rachele just blinked at her for a moment, then went back to her novel.

After a few minutes of near silence, broken only by the sound of Rachele turning the pages of her book, Misora stood up abruptly from the couch. Rachele glanced up at her questioningly.

"Just goin' to explore," Misora said as she snapped off a salute and headed past the manager's office to the east hallway. 'It's so boring around here...' she thought to herself as she set off down the hallway, looking into the various rooms. There were only six doors in the long hallway, and she hadn't had a chance to look into them before now, so...

The first door opened on a small storage room for cleaning supplies. Misora poked around for a moment, but didn't find any murder weapons or suspicious bloodied cloths, so she moved on to the next room, which turned out to be a storage room for old furniture. There were several desks stacked up on the left side of the room, while filing cabinets were stacked three deep on the right. She frowned when the drawers proved to be locked.

The next few rooms proved similar to the first, just more storage rooms. The last door before the hallway took a turn, however, proved a little more interesting.

Misora pushed the swinging door open and poked her head in, looking around. 'Huh...looks like a kitchen,' she thought as she stepped fully inside. Sure enough, two long metal preparation tables were situated in the middle of the room, while one whole wall was lined with various types of ovens. She spotted a large metal door to the left, and was walking over to investigate when it opened and a wave of cold air blasted her in the face.

The man that stepped out paused for a moment to give her a surly look, then walked over to the nearest preparation table and dropped several bags of frozen vegetables on a try.

"So," he said gruffly in perfect Japanese, glancing at her curiously. "You're new, aren't you?"

"Er...yeah..." Misora replied. She hopped up on a counter and looked at the man curiously as he went about laying the vegetables out to thaw. He seemed on first glance to be a bad tempered jerk, but his movements were neat and precise, as if he had been doing such work all his life. Something didn't add up. She watched him work in silence for a few minutes until her curiosity finally got the better of her.

"So how do you know Japanese?" she asked.

He didn't look up from his work as he answered. "I traveled to Japan for instruction a long time ago. I've always been good with languages, so I picked it up fairly quickly,"he said.

"Oh," Misora replied. It was weird...for the past week or so, she had been complaining about the lack of people to talk to, but now that she had finally found someone who actually spoke her language, she couldn't actually think of anything to say. He finished with the vegetables and glanced up at her, then disappeared into the walk-in freezer again. Misora swung her legs idly as she let her eyes roam the kitchen. She didn't see a refrigerator, but there was another metal door on the opposite wall from the counter she was sitting on. 'Huh...probably just like that freezer,' she thought to herself as the man returned. "Hi," she said, raising a hand.

The man smirked in a way that looked incredibly evil and mafia-like and dropped several packages of some sort of meat on a tray. "Hi yourself," he replied. 'What a weird guy...' Misora thought as she again let her eyes wander over the room; there still wasn't much to see. The walls, where they were not occupied with various kitchen appliances, were lined with closed cupboards, however, and that got her curiosity going again.

She watched as the man strolled over and opened a drawer under the counter she was sitting on and removed a knife and one of those big, spiky, hammer things that she had seen once in a while on cooking shows on TV.

"What's that for?" she asked, swinging her legs again. Somehow, she had a feeling he wasn't as mean as he looked; though the kitchen utensils he was holding certainly added to his fearsome image.

"I'll need it in a little while when I prepare this beef. It's a bad cut, so it's pretty tough," he explained gruffly as he opened the packages of meat and spread their contents out on another tray.

"Oh," Misora said again. Silence descended again as the man started messing with one of the ovens. Misora yawned, crossed her legs, uncrossed them. Minutes ticked by with nothing but the sound of the cook moving around and preparing dinner. After a moment, she slipped down off the counter and stood there, looking around at the cupboards and drawers.

"Hey, do you mind if I look around in here?" she asked. She had long ago discovered that it could be quite hazardous to one's health to go snooping around a strange kitchen without the head chef's approval.

"Knock yourself out," the man said, shrugging.

"'Kay," Misora said as she opened the first drawer. Nothing but steak knives; dozens and dozens of them. A question crossed her mind as she slid the drawer shut and opened another, revealing a tray full of forks. "Hey, how many people live here, anyway?"

The cook looked up for a moment, eyes distant as he made a few calculations. "Around forty girls ranging in age from fifteen to twenty-five. Then you've got the boss and the other employees...most of us live here in private rooms on the first or second floor, you know. The upper floors are mostly for the students..." he said idly. He picked up a sizable chef's knife and began cutting some broccoli.

"Huh..." Misora replied as she opened another drawer. Spoons. "Do you make all the food yourself?" Bigger spoons.

"I have assistants who help with lunch and sometimes dinner, but yes; I am the head chef here," he replied as he pushed the broccoli aside and took a pot from under the table. "Not everyone eats here at the dorm, though."

"Oh..." Smaller spoons. Why were there so many kinds of spoons...? Knives too. Dull knives, sharp knives, short knives, long knives, knives that looked more like spatulas than knives... And so many weird looking kinds of forks...! She moved on to the cupboards. Small glasses.

After a good ten minutes of exploration among the cupboards and drawers, Misora finally stopped in front of the second metal door. "What's in here?"

"Refrigerator," the chef said, not looking up.

"Oh, cool," Misora said as she tugged the door open and stepped inside.

* * *

"Ooooh...!" Misora said wonderingly as she looked at the racks that lined the walls of the small room. There! There was the remains of a cake! And there were a bunch of strawberries over there...!

She hurried across the room and popped open one of the plastic containers of strawberries. She picked up the biggest strawberry in the bunch and looked back at the door, which had swung shut after she entered. "Hehe~" She took a bite. "Mmm~mm~mmm~mmmm~!" So sweet! And good and strawberry-y! She took another just in case and moved along, poking around in boxes and opening plastic containers as she went.

After a moment, she stumbled onto the grapes, which were kind of sour and not very good. Nothing else looked very good, so she gave up on taste-testing at that point and exited the fridge.

* * *

"Find anything good?" the cook asked idly when Misora emerged.

"The strawberries were nice," Misora said as she looked around. The kitchen had undergone a massive change while she was out; there were now pots on various burners, and the temperature in the room had risen a good ten degrees at least, not to mention the various items covering the preparation tables and counters. She was somewhat glad to see her spot on the counter had been left empty, however. She hopped up on it and watched while the man continued preparing dinner.

* * *

Nina returned at around 8 o'clock, waved at Rachele, and headed for the stairs. She made her way up to the fifth floor and, much to her surprise, found the door locked. She dug out her key, took a deep breath, and opened the door a crack to peek inside. The light was off. Frowning, she pushed the door further open and fumbled for the light switch. She looked around the empty room curiously as her frown deepened.

She had fully expected to find Misora inside, waiting to jump out at her like she had done several times before.

"Misora? Are you in here?" she asked slowly in textbook Japanese as she stepped fully into the room. "Misora?" Her roommate was nowhere to be found.

'Where did she go? I was supposed to introduce her to our new special instructor...' Nina thought as she recalled the strange woman seated on the couch in the lobby, waiting for her return. She shook her head to clear it and dropped her bag on her bed, then exited the room and headed for the stairs. 'No point in waiting around...'

* * *

When Nina returned to the lobby, she found the woman who had accompanied her home still seated on the couch, arguing with two guests. Nina had never seen either one of them before.

"Why are you two still here?" Ciel asked in exasperation. "You were supposed to have left three days ago. The Church isn't going to pay your room and board much longer, you know."

"Eh, it's all right, it's all right," the playful looking blonde woman said. Nina found herself staring as she paused on the bottom step.

"Well, Arcueid simply refused to leave before seeing the rest of the city," a Japanese woman with long black hair said in perfect Italian as she looked idly out through a window with her arms crossed.

"Hahaha!" the blonde woman laughed.

Nina stepped into the room quietly and paused when the Japanese girl glanced up at her. Not knowing what else to do, she just stood there awkwardly for a moment while the blonde woman babbled on and on about some boy named Shiki.

"Um...um...Instructor Ciel?" she asked. The Japanese girl's incredulous gaze snapped back to her, and Nina took an involuntary step back while Ciel continued arguing with the blonde woman, who seemed to be having far too much fun baiting her.

"Ciel, what's this about you being an instructor?" the Japanese girl asked, her voice cutting through the noise.

The blonde woman blinked a few times, then made a sly grin. "Eh? Eeeeh?" she asked, poking Ciel with her elbow. "Ciel's going to be a teacher? How cute~ Do you want your students to go 'Teach me, sensei!' or 'But sensei, we can't do this sort of thing~' or 'Sensei, can you help me? My zipper's stuck, Uhu~n'?"

"No, Arcueid, I do not," Ciel replied with a tone and expression bordering on psychotic. "And where did you hear about that kind of thing anyway? Is Shiki watching those weird things again?"

Arcueid shrugged. "Nah. I borrowed 'em from Sacchin." Ciel and the Japanese girl looked at each other thoughtfully.

"Um...Instructor Ciel?" Nina tried again, mystified. She was totally lost.

Ciel finally seemed to hear her this time, and turned to look. She barely managed to hold back a glare. So _THIS_ was where Akiha heard about her becoming an instructor...! She wrangled her expression into something resembling a normal, non-murderous look, and answered the girl. "Yes, Nina? What is it?"

Nina cringed back at Ciel's terrifying expression. "I...couldn't find Misora anywhere..."

"Did someone say my name?" Misora asked in Japanese as she stepped into the lobby from the hallway she had gone down much earlier. She held a bowl of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other. "What?" she asked, looking around as everyone turned to look at her.

"Well, why don't you introduce us, Ciel?" Akiha said with an air of nobility as she switched over to Japanese.

Ciel made a sour face as she stood up from the couch and motioned Misora and Nina over.

"So...Tohno Akiha, Arcueid Brunestud, these are two of the girls I've been assigned." She turned to Misora and Nina. "Nina Bianchi, Kasuga Misora, these are..." she paused as her mind went into overdrive. Enemies? Not quite. They all knew each other far too well to be acquaintances, too. Rivals? ...not so much. "...my friends?" she finally said, unconsciously making it into a question. "We...met each other...in Japan. Sort of," she said, glancing back at the two of them. Arcueid smiled hugely and waved, and Ciel felt a vein in her forehead threaten to pop out.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Akiha said formally.

"The pleasure is all mine," Nina said pleasantly.

"Ooh, ice cream! What flavor is that?" Arcueid said as she went over to Misora.

"It's...ah...vanilla?" Misora said through a spoonful, taken aback.

"I never saw vanilla ice cream that color before. Where can I get some?"

"Oh, so _that_'s what you wanted! Why didn't you say so, hahaha!" Misora said as she stuck the spoon in her mouth and grabbed Arcueid's wrist with her other hand. "Come on, the cook here's awesome! He let me eat anything I wanted!" she said around the spoon as she tugged the woman along.

Ciel realized she was grinding her teeth together and forced herself to stop. This was nothing to get excessive dental bills over, after all. It was just a little stressful, that was all.

The front door opened and a serious looking redhead entered the dorm and paused, raising an eyebrow as she took in the chaos. She glanced at the receptionist, who shrugged and shook her head, then to the manager's office, which was closed with the light off. She glanced at the woman her friend Nina was talking to, and their eyes met. Her steps faltered for a moment, and then the woman looked away.

Nina happened to glance up and spot her there. "Isabella! Come here for a moment, please?"

Isabella quickly scanned the strangers' faces and glanced over as Misora and Arcueid disappeared down one of the hallways. "...that was your new roommate, wasn't it?"

Nina nodded pleasantly as Isabella strolled over. "Tohno Akiha, this is my friend Isabella Lombardi. Isabella, this is Tohno Akiha, she's a friend of our new teacher; she's from Japan."

"Pleasure to meet you," Isabella said, her expression serious as she and Akiha locked gazes. Something passed between them and both stiffened.

"The pleasure is all mine," Akiha replied graciously, her eyes cold as ice.

"Ah...ah..." Nina said as she looked back and forth between them. "N-now now, Isabella, I'm sure she's a good person. She's a friend of our new instructor after all..." she said, raising her hands placatingly. She looked to Ciel for help, but the older woman simply smirked.

"Oh, I'm sure she is just lovely company," Isabella said in pleasant tones, her hands opening and closing, as if she was imagining them around the woman's neck.

"Oh my, what a lovely shade of red," Akiha said as she reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from Isabella's shoulder. "Do you dye it?"

"N-now now..." Nina said as Akiha hit on one of Isabella's weak points.

"Why no, it is this shade of red naturally," Isabella said, her voice sugary sweet and bloody murder in her eyes. "On the other hand, I have never seen such a wondrous shade of black...so silky and smooth. Tell me...is it a wig?"

Akiha's eyes bugged out, and Ciel very nearly burst into laughter as she finally stepped between them, surreptitiously giving Akiha a warning look. "Okay, okay. That's enough. We are all friends here, there is no need for—"

"But she said I wear a wig!" Akiha screeched.

"Well you said I dye my hair!" Isabella shouted. Ciel gave her a warning look, and she quickly regained her poise and coughed lightly into her hand. "I am sorry, it appears I have had a trying day; please excuse my rudeness," she said, slipping a mask of politeness over her words again as she took a couple steps back.

"How long will you be staying, Miss Akiha?" Nina asked pleasantly.

Akiha took a moment to get herself back under control. Something about that redhead just got under her skin... "I-"

"They're leaving today," Ciel broke in, giving Akiha a look that dared her to say any different.

Akiha just grinned slightly and let out a small laugh. "Fair enough. We will be leaving as soon as Arcueid returns from her ice cream."

"Oh..." Nina said, a touch of melancholy tinting her words. She quite liked this long-haired Japanese woman, even if Isabella couldn't stand her.

"Hey hey Akiha...you've gotta...try this ice cream...it's great!" Arcueid said between spoonfuls as she ran back into the lobby, carrying a bowl.

"Chef Nico's ice cream is very delicious," Nina said pleasantly, smiling.

Akiha couldn't help but smile a little at the girl, and nodded. "Okay then."

* * *

Hours passed as everyone got to know each other and ate ice cream as the dorm regulars came and went, until it was time to go. Misora and Arcueid tearfully parted while Ciel took Akiha aside. "So, what do you think?"

Akiha glanced at the three girls that would be Ciel's students thoughtfully. "I don't know. The Japanese girl seems like an idiot at first glance, but her reflexes are very good. When I dropped my spoon, she caught it by the handle before it touched the floor. Her Italian is terrible, though," she said, grimacing. "Nina is...kind. She also seems to have quite a bit of power."

Ciel grimaced. "Yes, I saw you probing her. Please don't suck the life force from my students, Akiha."

Akiha looked at her, seemingly offended. "I didn't 'suck the life force from her', I was simply...taste testing."

"You were eating my student's soul," Ciel replied, deadpan.

Akiha grinned slightly and closed her eyes, conceding the point. "Only a little. It will grow back."

Ciel leaned on the iron railing around the porch. "How about Isabella?"

Akiha stiffened immediately, her back going rigid. "She is...is...Italian." That was the only non-inflammatory thing she could think to say about the girl. How dare she ask if her hair was a wig!

Ciel snorted. "Yes, I suppose that describes her." They stood there for a moment. It was late, and while it wasn't January, the night air still had some chill to it. Ciel glanced over at her longtime friend/rival and sighed. "She's intelligent, proud, and set in her ways. A lot like you were at her age," Ciel said distantly. Akiha let out a disgusted 'hmph', but otherwise remained silent.

"So I suppose your hearing went badly?" Akiha finally asked.

"Yes," Ciel replied. "Roa was killed, Nero Chaos was killed, and others as well, but...they said I should have executed Shiki as well, and that I shouldn't have involved the locals to the extent I did."

It was Akiha's turn to snort this time. "Oh? And who would have _let_ you kill brother?"

Ciel grinned crookedly as she shifted her position to a more comfortable one. "I don't think I could have brought myself to kill him even if I had been given a direct order. Oh, and thank you, for coming to speak up for me at the hearing."

Akiha shook her head. "You're too important to the church for any particularly bad punishment anyway."

Ciel shook her head in amusement.

"So, I suppose those students are your punishment?"

Ciel nodded. "They know I dislike teaching others, so..." She shrugged. "I don't think it will be _that_ bad; I haven't spent any time with Isabella or Nina yet, but Misora is interesting."

Akiha smiled slightly and her eyes went distant as she thought about her brother, and Japan. "Well, I suppose I don't have to tell you to teach them well?"

"No. Judging from the profiles I was given, Nina and Isabella at least will be inducted directly into the Guardian Agency and Special Exorcism Agency respectively directly upon graduation, rather than wait and go through the standard route." The 'standard route' tended to involve six to eight years of training and instruction in one of the many lesser agencies after high school, followed by several extremely difficult tests. However, Nina and Isabella both had shown incredible promise during early training, and had thus far exceeded expectations in every respect, often even outstripping their teachers. Ciel had a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that the hearing had been a sham, an excuse to get the two girls a teacher whose skills they couldn't surpass easily.

"So, what about this Misora girl?" Akiha asked.

"Now _that_ is a mystery. As far as I can tell, she is just...average. Except for a few things such as track and field events, she has no real specialty, and her power levels are just sad. Something about her though...I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"She's a lot like Arcueid, in a way, after she met Shiki. Very imaginative. She isn't the usual high school applicant for the Special Agencies, that's for sure."

"Oh?" Akiha asked, straightening up. To hear such things from Ciel was impressive, to say the least. "Why do you say that?"

"There's just some energy about her that brings life to a room. I don't know why, but for some reason the church has its eye on her, _has_ had its eye on her for years, apparently. Did you know they signed her up for the Burial Agency without even telling her about it?"

"...that sounds very peculiar."

Ciel nodded. "The most secretive of the Agencies, and they're already trying to push her into it before training even starts. They must know something about her..." Ciel said, trailing off. This whole situation was aggravating. She _hated_ bureaucracy. Nobody would tell her anything...! "Huh..."

Akiha raised an eyebrow as she looked at Ciel. "'Huh'? Is something wrong?"

Ciel shook her head and grinned crookedly. "No. It's just that the three of them remind me of the three of us, back then. Only with less murderous intent and no boy to fight over."

Akiha leaned on the porch railing again, idly picking at a spot of rust on the aging structure. "That bad, is it?"

"In a way."

"Well, in any case, I'm sure you will do fine," Akiha said with an air of finality , standing back from the railing. "Let's go back inside, I'm cold."

Ciel nodded and led the way.

* * *

_Author's Notes_: Well, there goes chapter 2. Not much action in this chapter, and those of you who don't know the Tsukihime characters will probably be a little lost...sorry about that. If you're wondering about them, you can find some decent writeups on wikipedia. Don't worry, they said they'd be leaving anyway, so... Also, I tried to cram in a lot of characterization; I don't know how well that worked out, though. Also, from the moment Misora returns to the lobby with ice cream, the characters speak in Italian and/or Japanese, sometimes repeating themselves in the other language so everyone will understand. Nina and Isabella speak Italian, Misora speaks Japanese, and everyone else speaks both. I figured it would be annoying to mention what language they're speaking every other sentence, so...


	3. Chapter 3

October 7th, 2007, 11:43 p.m., Rome

* * *

"Misora! Two targets, six o'clock!" Isabella shouted.

Misora ducked and whirled around just in time to avoid the two little flying devils as they zipped past, trying to grab her hair. She snagged one's foot and whipped the creature down into the pavement hard enough to crack concrete and pinned it in place through the body with the long knife Ciel had given each of them for protection and as a symbol of their status. "Nina! Take care of it!" she shouted to the third girl as she took off running after the remaining devil.

"Misora, what are you doing? You can't go after it alone! We have to call the teachers!" Nina shouted as she ran up. She saw the tiny devil struggling fiercely to free itself from the knife that held it in place and almost screamed; she hadn't had a chance to see it clearly before, just the occasional quick glimpse. It was a horrible little thing; maybe two feet tall, bony, with batlike wings sprouting out of its back and a tiny, malformed, humanlike body like something out of a nightmare. And the smell...! It stank like sulfur and wet ash.

Misora glanced back, waved jauntily as she ran, and took out her pactio card. "Adeat!" Her speed increased ten fold as she went after the rapidly fleeing devil.

* * *

'Come on come on come one, keep going straight you little moron,' Misora thought as the wicked grin on her face widened. The distance between them closed rapidly and her smile widened toothily. "I've got you now...!" she bellowed.

The devil looked back over its shoulder at her, its horrible yellow eyes rolling in its head, and...abruptly changed its path and darted around a corner, down another street.

Misora cursed under her breath. There was no time to slow down enough to take the turn, so she reached out and snagged a streetlight pole, silently thanking the intense training she had undergone for the past six months as her grip held and she swung through the air. She let go of the pole, flew through the air perhaps thirty feet, and stumbled slightly as her feet again made contact with the road surface. The devil was quite far ahead now, so she pushed herself to put on more speed.

* * *

The devil looked back at the irritating human that was pursuing it. It didn't think, not like humans did, but it understood things in its own way. It had been released from its confinement along with its brother devil, and when free, a devil of its type tended to do certain things. And, well...

It looked back again just in time to avoid the human's grasp by moving to the side.

The average lesser devil had an IQ that could often be measured in the single digits, and defeating one was no problem for any experienced professional. However, they did tend to have a certain animal cunning, and occasionally displayed startling feats of mental might.

This one chose just that moment to make one of those mental leaps that were the stuff of embarrassing stories and humiliating incidents.

The devil looked back at the human, looked forward at the line of buildings rapidly approaching, looked back, and...flew up, gaining altitude at a surprising rate.

* * *

Misora made another lunge just as her target headed upward. Startled, she failed to compensate for the change in momentum caused by her attempt to grab the devil, flailed around as she overbalanced, almost corrected in time, and slipped on a patch of wet concrete.

Misora instinctively tucked and rolled...straight into the side of a parked car at thirty miles per hour. Luckily, she had had the presence of mind to throw up a flimsy reinforcement spell, and so ended up with a few painful bruises instead of a few dozen broken bones, a collapsed lung or two, and a broken spine.

"Ow ow ow," she said as she got to her feet. She looked around for the devil and spotted it perhaps a hundred feet high, still flying along the line of the road away from her, already a fair distance away.

Now Misora was by no means stupid, but suffice to say that she was never in the top ten on test day back in high school. She did often display a sort of animal cunning, and occasionally made amazing leaps of logic. Sometimes these leaps of logic proved useful; more often, not. But this time, as she looked from the fleeing devil down to the car parked halfway down the street to the open space between said car and herself, she had a logical moment of the first sort.

Misora ran full speed, hopped, used the car's roof as a launchpad, and threw herself high into the air after the devil.

Unfortunately, she failed to consider several hugely important factors. One: What if she missed? Two: What if she _didn't_ miss? And Three: How does one land unhurt after catapulting themselves through the air at a height of over one hundred feet and a rate of roughly forty miles per hour?

The devil looked back just in time to see the panic-stricken human flailing as it came flying through the air, and then the two collided.

Misora screamed as she smacked into the flying devil, which was pasted to her chest by sheer momentum. It screamed in turn as its world came crashing down around it. _Humans could fly? _it thought frantically._  
_

The building that jumped out in their way soon put an end to that matter, in any case.

* * *

Misora came limping down the street back toward her friends twenty minutes later, dragging the mangled, twitching devil by one broken wing, grinning hugely as Nina and Isabella ran up to her.

"Heh, I got 'im," she said woozily as she swayed on her feet.

"Misora you idiot," Isabella said in a long-suffering tone as she took the devil from Misora and threw it into the containment circle Nina had drawn up around the other one. She watched for a moment to make sure everything was working correctly, but neither devil moved.

"Misora! Don't ever scare me like that again!" Nina said as she led Misora over to a nearby bench. "I thought you were going to be killed!"

Misora looked up at her, dazed, and grinned. "Me? No way~"

"I called the teachers," Isabella said, swiping some of her red hair out of her eyes. "They said to remain calm and stay here until they arrive," she said, looking pointedly at Misora, who grinned sheepishly.

"I flew," Misora said dreamily after a moment.

"Yes, yes, you flew into cloudcuckooland," Isabella replied as she began checking Misora over for broken bones.

"Heh, cloudcuckooland, I'll have to remember that," Misora replied in a painful daze as Isabella poked a particularly bad bruise.

* * *

Several days later...

* * *

Ciel opened the front door of the dorm and stepped inside, casting a quick glance around, but there was no one present but the receptionist, Aurelia, who appeared to be reading a book with her head down. She stepped inside and glanced at the floor behind her to make sure she hadn't tracked any mud in. "Hello, Aurelia. How are things?" The receptionist didn't appear to hear her, so she repeated herself. "Aurelia?"

Aurelia jerked and looked up, her eyes wide and feverish, her face pale. "Oh...I'm sorry. I must have dozed off..."

Ciel gave her a serious look. "You don't look so good. Is the manager here? You should ask her if you can go home early..." She gave the other woman a good long look, frowning. To tell the truth, Aurelia looked _really_ bad, as if she could pass out at any time. Pale, too. "...are you going to be okay, Aurelia?"

The other woman nodded as she stood up, putting a hand on the desk for support. She nodded at a folder on the desktop. "I was told to make sure you received that report," she said shakily.

"Oh, thank you. Go ahead and see the manager, I'll watch the desk for you," Ciel said. Aurelia nodded, and she watched her go over to the manager's office and enter, shutting the door after her. Ciel sighed and shook her head. Aurelia always overworked herself; it was a wonder the woman hadn't died of exhaustion years ago. She sat down in the receptionist's chair and picked up the folder. She leaned back, making herself comfortable, then opened the report.

* * *

"_MIISOOOORAAAAA!" _ The whole dorm building shook as Misora's name was bellowed out downstairs in the lobby.

Nina looked at Misora with wide eyes. "Uh...sorry Misora, but I'm going to go...to the bathroom now. See you later!" she said as she fled the dorm room.

"Urgh...coward! How could you abandon me at a time line this?" Misora called out after her, but her roommate was long gone. Sempai was going to _kill_ her! She rolled over painfully on her bed and pulled the blanket up over her head.

"Oh no oh no oh no..." Misora muttered as someone wearing heavy boots stomped up the stairway. She could clearly hear every angry clomp of those familiar boots up five flights of stairs. By the time they reached her floor, Misora had decided to pretend she had fallen into a coma.

The door slammed open and she flinched.

"Misora~" someone said pleasantly.

Misora wasn't fooled, however, and kept her eyes shut.

"Misora~" the person said again, standing over her bed.

She clamped her eyes shut harder and faked a snore.

"Misora~ I know you wouldn't be foolish enough to pretend to be asleep when you have oh so much to answer for, _would you_?" the speaker said, the last two words shockingly severe after the sweet tone of the rest of the sentence.

"Er...no?" Misora tried, her eyes still clamped shut as she lay under the covers.

"Then sit up and look at me." All the false pleasantness dropped from the tone, leaving nothing but a businesslike order in it.

Misora sat up on the bed sheepishly and swung her bruised and still-sore legs over the side as she looked down at her lap, shifting awkwardly as the various aches and pains from the devil incident several days previous made themselves known.

"That's better."

Misora looked at the other woman's boots. "I'm sorry, Ciel-sempai."

Ciel put a finger under Misora's chin and lifted her head so she could look her in the eye. "So what is all this I hear about you chasing after a devil alone while I was out on a mission?"

Misora grimaced, but there was no way out of it. "Well, there've been a lot of flying devil sightings in the city over the past week or so, so I thought..."

"So you thought you might take your training and go and do something about it, is that it?" Ciel asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Misora replied, smiling hopefully. Ciel's face remained impassive.

"And what would you have done if you had run into more than one or two of them?" Ciel asked quietly.

"Er...hope for the best?"

Ciel just _looked_ at her, and Misora got quiet.

"I'm sorry. I just...I saw him getting away, and I didn't want him to, so..."

Ciel sighed and clamped a hand down on Misora's bruised shoulder. Misora winced, but kept her silence.

"Misora, you have to stop going with your first impulse. You have to _think_, or one of these days you will get yourself or one of your friends killed. You could take lessons from Isabella, she's a good girl with a good head on her shoulders," Ciel said. It was true, too. Isabella was by far the most levelheaded of the three trainees assigned to Ciel as her punishment. Isabella had made good grades in school, could follow orders, and could make proper decisions on the fly, and the instructors never failed to point out these points when lecturing troublemakers or underachievers. What they universally failed to mention, however, was Isabella's stubborn streak, her tendency to brush off advice that went against her decisions, and finally the way she often forgot to communicate her famous on-the-fly plans to her teammates. The girl had potential though, that was the thing. All of the girls did, or they wouldn't be undergoing testing and training for the Special Agencies.

"Ugh."

"Now, tell me about the devils," Ciel said, falling back on one of her usual punishments when a student did something stupid.

Misora frowned, but did as her teacher said and began reciting the lessons on devils. "The devils, while similar to the demons, are completely separate beings and are related to religious matters, making their home in Hell rather than on the physical plane..." She continued on, stumbling here and there, until Ciel judged she had gone on long enough.

"So, what would have happened if you had run into more than one or two?" she asked again.

Misora grimaced and looked away as she answered. "...they would have dragged me to Hell, and there wouldn't have been anything I could do about it..."

"That's correct," Ciel said. "And what would have happened to Nina and Isabella?"

"...they would have been next..." Misora mumbled, still looking away.

"Correct."

They just sat there in silence for a moment, Ciel doing her best to make it awkward for the idiotic, friendly girl sitting on the bed across from her, a punishment tailored specifically to Misora, who absolutely _hated_ sitting still and being stared at as if she was an idiot. Several minutes of silent staring passed while Misora squirmed intensely until Ciel determined the poor girl had suffered enough, and decided to have mercy on her. She had learned many things about her students over the past months, and one of the most important things about Misora was that the girl, against all reason, tended to disregard extended punishments; it was only when a punishment was swift and incredibly uncomfortable that Misora seemed to pay any attention to it.

"Look, what's all this I hear about you flying? You don't have a broom or anything like that, and you don't have anywhere near enough power, so how did you do it?" Ciel asked, changing the subject. She just couldn't stay mad at her...

"Heh, well..." Misora said as she put her arm up behind her head in a 'gosh, I'm just good like that' sort of way. "I didn't really fly, it was more like a really, really long jump."

"A jump?" Ciel asked, raising an eyebrow as she sat down on Nina's bed.

"Yep. I ran and jumped off the roof of a car and flew through the air. It was amazing!" Misora gushed. "The wind and everything, I loved it!"

"How did you get injured?"

"Er...that was the building I ran into. But the flying part, that was great," Misora said, nodding. It had been like nothing else she had ever experienced, and she wanted to try it again. Sure, smacking into the building had hurt, but with a little practice...

"Well," Ciel said after a moment. "At least you three are safe." She stood up and walked to the door, where she paused, looking back at Misora. "Oh, by the way, the three of you will begin special training on how to defend against devils the week after next. But first, the people in charge have decided that you will have a test with a live ghoul next week. I would do my best to recover by then, if I were you." Ciel stepped outside and pulled the door shut after her, leaving Misora alone in the room.

Misora blinked a couple times as she considered what the instructor had said. Sure, the devil-fighting class seemed interesting, but it was the second part that had caught her attention. A test with a live ghoul? A zombie? A real live zombie? This was freaking awesome! It would be just like a zombie movie...!

The door opened again a moment later and Nina slipped in quietly.

"So, how did it go?" she asked hopefully. She had yet to get scolded, but had a feeling it was coming at some point. But in any case, Misora, as the instigator of this particular incident, would receive the worst punishment.

Misora looked at her wonderingly. "I've got a live test against a ghoul next week..." she said.

Nina's eyes widened. "A ghoul? A _real_ ghoul? Are you going to be okay, Misora?" She wasn't particularly keen on losing the best roommate she had ever had...

"Eh...I'll be fine. They wouldn't let someone like me do something _that_ dangerous," Misora said confidently.

"I hope you're right," Nina replied as she sat down on her bed. A ghoul test? She shivered. "Was Instructor Ciel mad?"

"Yeah, but she didn't say anything about any punishments," Misora said. "She seemed more curious about everything than mad."

"Oh..."

"But wow, can you imagine? A real live ghoul!"

Nina shuddered. "Ugh...yeah. Are you sure _that's_ not your punishment?"

"Heh."

* * *

The next few days were a misery of anticipation for Misora. Curiosity, expectation, excitement, and a tiny sliver of caution raged through her imagination as every waking thought centered around 'The Ghoul Test', as the others put it.

It was so exciting she didn't know what to do with herself. In fact, her excitement was so intense that the night before the test, she barely slept at all.

Then came the day of the test.

* * *

Ciel knocked on the door before sunrise. "Misora?"

The door opened before she even finished speaking. Misora stood on the other side, wide awake, dressed, and grinning like a maniac.

"Is it time is it time?"

"Er...yes..." Ciel said uncertainly. This was all screwed up! Misora should have been terrified! _Nobody_ actually _looked forward_ to the ghoul test...!

"Great! Hurry up, I wanna go now, come on!" Misora said as she slipped past Ciel out into the hallway.

Ciel glanced into the room and saw Nina look up at her blearily.

"...she kept me up all night..." the girl said tiredly.

"...just get some sleep, I'll talk to the other instructors okay?" Ciel said. Nina nodded sleepily and collapsed on her bed, and Ciel pulled the door shut. She turned to Misora, but the girl was already down at the end of the hall, practically _bouncing_ as she waited.

Ciel heaved a long-suffering sigh.

* * *

"So what is it like, do ghouls fall apart when you hit them or does your hand go through wait no are they alive or dead do they remember what happened when they were alive or are they like some sort of mindless robot bent on eating human flesh oh wait do they like brains too I wonder I mean brains specifically or does anything work Ciel hey Ciel why aren't you answering me, Ciel?" Misora said.

"I see why Nina was so tired," Ciel said in measured tones as the two of them climbed the steps to the Practical Test Center. She paused at the top of the steps and looked at Misora, who was bouncing again. She sighed and clamped her hands down on the girl's shoulders, holding her still.

"Look, Misora, this is not a game. You will be facing an actual ghoul in here. Normally, this sort of thing would be more of a final exam, but your name has come up in conversation among some very high profile people, and they want to see what you are capable of. Misora, stop squirming and look at me. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Ciel demanded.

Misora glanced from the door to Ciel and back to the door. "Yeah yeah, I get it. People are impressed, want to test me, etc. etc. Can we go see the ghoul now?"

Ciel sighed and let go of the girl, who immediately started bouncing again. She opened the door and led Misora inside.

* * *

The Practical Test Center was much more modern than the other buildings in the complex, the better to provide the necessary security, no doubt. It simply wouldn't do to allow some horrific abortion of nature's will to escape into the streets of Rome because of old fashioned construction methods, after all. But that was only if said abortion of nature's will could escape the containment chambers two hundred feet underground, in any case.

Ciel glanced around at the completely average looking people lounging about here and there all over the place, and turned to Misora, who was still bouncing as she looked at anything and everything. "Normally, there aren't anywhere near so many guards. Someone important must be here today," she whispered.

Misora just nodded absently as her grin widened. 'Ohboyohboyohboy'

Ciel led the way to the elevator, used a key, typed in a code, went through an eyescan, gave both thumbprints, and finally opened the door.

"We're going to several floors underground. There are a lot of dangerous things down there, so there is a lot of security," Ciel explained as she led Misora inside.

All that was going through Misora's head, however, was images of the zombie apocalypse, and how awesome she would look fighting it off.

* * *

Security was even tighter down on the 'freak show' basement level, as it was commonly called among the maintenance staff. Ciel flashed her ID to the gun-toting guards and pulled Misora along until they reached a heavy reinforced steel door. She stopped and turned to Misora.

"Okay, listen. You need to be on your best behavior in there, Misora. Understand? There will be some important people watching this, and if you embarrass me...well, let's just say a ghoul will be the least of your problems, understand? _Understand_?" she repeated when Misora didn't seem to be paying attention.

"Yeah, I get it. Come on, let's go in," Misora said excitedly.

* * *

The room was fairly small; perhaps twenty feet long and ten wide, crammed with computers, wall mounted screens, and various other pieces of equipment, not to mention at least thirty people from various branches of the Secret Agencies, and even a couple higher-ups from the mainstream church.

Ciel carefully schooled her face to hide her surprise as she scanned the faces. Some of these people were very high ranking indeed. After a moment she spotted the director on the other side of the room, waving her over. She grabbed Misora's hand and squeezed through the crowd toward the director, who opened a door and stepped through. This room was much more spartan than the one they had just come through; totally empty of furnishings, it seemed to function as an air lock of sorts.

The director started speaking immediately. "Ciel, I have been temporarily relieved of command. Something is going on, there's even a representative of the pope here."

"Is that bad?" Misora asked as she finally stopped bouncing. The director looked at her curiously.

"Not per se, but...I don't like this. I would advise you to call this off, Ciel."

Ciel glanced back at the heavy reinforced door behind them. "...I don't think that's an option," she said thoughtfully.

Misora looked back and forth between Ciel and the director, and frowned worriedly as the doubts she should have been feeling all week finally stormed through her mind.

Ciel turned to her. "You still have your pactio card, right?" she asked. Misora nodded, uncharacteristically quiet. "Good. Keep it. Don't hesitate to use it if you feel the need. Something's not right about this..."

Someone opened the door behind them. "Director? Instructor Ciel? The test is ready to begin."

The director went to the door and paused, looking back. "Ciel?"

Ciel glanced at him, then back to Misora. "Good luck, Misora. Don't get killed," she said, grinning to hide her worry.

Misora watched them exit the room and close the door, which slid shut with a pneumatic hiss. The other, heavier door hissed open, and Misora hesitantly stepped through, looking around warily. The room she found herself in now was quite large, perhaps fifty feet square, with a high ceiling and cameras set high in the walls behind protective coverings. The room was done up like something out of an office building, with desks and chairs and old computers and things. The large roll-up type doors that lined the opposite wall definitely didn't fit the theme, however.

A loud beep made her jump, and then a man's voice came through a speaker set in the ceiling. "The testing of subject Kasuga Misora, age eighteen, female, Asian, Instructor Ciel, will begin now."

A motor started up somewhere behind the walls, and the smallest of the roll up doors on the other side of the room started to open. Misora stood her ground and drew the the knife she had used to pin the devil to the ground a week ago. This somehow didn't seem like much fun anymore... She saw what was behind the door on the other side of the room and let out a high-pitched sound that could have been a breathless scream, could have been a whine.

* * *

The ghoul looked at the wall of its prison absently as the floor rumbled. The wall began moving upward, and the ghoul raised its head as its eyes followed. It didn't understand much, its brain was too far gone for that, but it did understand that this was strange. It wasn't until the door was raised to eye level that it finally realized it wasn't alone. It sensed a warm body nearby. It took a few shuffling steps out of its prison and turned its head this way and that, searching for the source of the energy it felt. A high pitched squealing caught its attention, and it locked eyes with its prey.

* * *

Misora scrambled back into a desk and accidentally dropped her knife as the ghoul locked eyes with her. She scrambled to grab it, but accidentally kicked it under the desks. The ghoul let out a freakish growling noise that set her teeth on edge, and she backed away, putting several desks between herself and the ghoul, which had begun shuffling toward her.

This was most definitely _not_ what she had imagined...! The ghoul was so much more _real_ than anything she had ever seen in a zombie movie; it was naked, giving free view of its pale, bloodless flesh as it began picking up speed. She noted with horror that it had been a young woman, probably no older than she was herself, and felt a powerful urge to vomit.

Misora kept backing away until she bumped into the wall behind her and realized there was no other place to go. She skirted along the wall sideways, looking up at the pitiless cameras.

"S...someone help me!" she shouted. There was no answer other than another groan from the ghoul, which had begun to move faster, now that the stiffness was leaving its joints. "H-help...! Help me, please!" she begged as tears started welling up. This was not what she had wanted...!

The ghoul cleared the last desk, and Misora found herself backed into the corner. The ghoul plodded forward, raising its hands to grab the frightened girl.

* * *

"Stop the test, you have to stop the test!" Ciel shouted. A guard behind her grabbed her as she moved forward, but she elbowed him in the stomach and slammed his face into her knee, then rushed over to the control panel and pushed aside the test conductor. Someone slipped an arm around her neck and pulled her back before she could do anything, and she elbowed him in the stomach as the other observers watched the monitors. "Can't you see she's panicking? I _told_ you people this was too soon...!"

"Someone quiet her!" the pope's representative ordered.

"Ciel! Please stop!" the director pleaded as she struggled with the guards.

"Wait, look! There she goes," someone said admiringly, drawing Ciel's attention to the monitors again. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

* * *

Misora nimbly dodged the ghoul's clumsy swipe and ran down the aisle between the office desks. 'I have to do something...!' If only she still had that knife...! She looked around for something she could use. The chairs were too big for her to lift. Maybe the computer monitors? She leaned over the monitor on a nearby desk as the ghoul approached, and yanked out the cords on the back of it. She picked it up with a mighty heave and barely managed to balance it on her shoulder.

"Erg," she said, grunting with the effort. It was a lot heavier than it looked...! "Sorta like doing shot put," she muttered as she turned to face the ghoul. "'cept there's no circle to stay in, and I just hafta hit it..." She backed up carefully until she judged there was enough space, then trotted forward and launched the monitor at the ghoul.

It bounced off the ghoul's head and knocked it down.

"All right, eat that you freaking zombie! That'll teach you to underestimate the star of the Mahora Track and Field club!" Misora shouted in relief. "Is that all you've got? Come on! Ha!"

She cut her cheering short when the ghoul pushed itself up on its hands and knees, then grabbed on to one of the desks to regain its feet. It shook its head and looked at her, and moaned.

Misora's hands were shaking as she pulled out her pactio card. "Adeat!"

* * *

"Tennis shoes," one of the observers said idly as Misora's artifact appeared

"It's definitely a pactio artifact..." another replied. "I wonder what its true form is?"

"Can't be the Spring Heels or she'd be bouncing."

"Boots of Speed, maybe? Sandals of Hermes?" someone else offered.

"Can't be that. Draco, our agent in Istanbul, has the Boots of Speed," someone said from the back of the crowd.

"It can't be the Sandals of Hermes either. There's a wing design on the side, but the Sandals have real wings in all forms, and besides, she isn't flying."

Ciel stopped struggling as she watched the monitors. There were many, many ways to kill a ghoul, and she could spot half a dozen possibilities just within arm's reach of Misora. There was a chance now, if the girl could figure it out. "Come on Misora, _think_!"

* * *

Misora watched the ghoul as it approached, and moved to put another desk between them as she looked for a weapon. The monitor hadn't had enough force behind it, apparently. She wasn't strong enough to throw one any harder than she had, though. If only she had something pointy...

The ghoul lunged at her again, but Misora sidestepped and stuck her foot out, tripping the ghoul up, and quickly moved back out of its range as it flailed on the ground. She looked around the room again, considering what she saw. The desks were in sloppy lines, the office chairs placed behind them seemingly at random, many sitting in the middle of the aisles. There was no room for her to get up any speed on the ground, and definitely not enough room to get the speed to run on the walls to escape the ghoul... Not that there was actually anywhere to escape _to_...

The ghoul moaned, seemingly annoyed now, and Misora backed along one of the aisles between the tables. The ghoul shoved an office chair out of the way and came lumbering toward her, picking up speed. Misora had just started backing away again when something rolled under her foot. She took a quick glance down. 'A pencil...?' Hadn't she seen a movie once, where some crazy guy...?

Misora's eyes widened as something clicked into place in her mind and she saw the room in a new light. She pushed another chair into the ghoul's way and climbed up onto the desks. She moved a couple rows over, and the ghoul made an angry noise as it tried to push a desk out of the way.

Misora dropped down off the desk she had been standing on and started yanking open the drawers. She had been so fixed on beating the ghoul to death with blunt objects that everything else had escaped her attention. Sure, office supplies didn't _seem_ dangerous, but even paper could cut skin... She opened the last drawer and found what she was looking for. Inside was a plastic tray that held about a dozen pens and pencils. She shut the drawers and looked up at the ghoul as it finally came around the end of the aisle. Was it actually _glaring_ at her...?

She backed away, pushing chairs out of the way as she went. The ghoul would have an easier time coming after her, but then again, she would also have an easier time going after it. She reached the end of the aisle and looked at the wall, perhaps ten feet behind her. "Just like what I did with the devil the other day," she muttered.

* * *

"What is she doing?" someone asked. "Is that a pencil?"

"A pencil? Wasn't there a movie where..."

Ciel ignored the chatter as she watched the screens closely. It looked like Misora had finally gotten herself under control. But ghouls were tough creatures; it took a lot to take one down. If she just used her pactio and ran fast at it, she wouldn't have the space to create enough speed to do anything but knock it down. It would take a lot more speed, a lot more...power... Ciel's mind flashed back to Misora's description of her fight with the two devils. '-_I ran and jumped off the roof of a car_-'

"The Seven League Boots," Ciel said suddenly as everything clicked into place. Several of those who had been discussing Misora's pactio looked at her.

"You know, that would make sense."

"Yeah. I wonder..."

Suddenly sure of what Misora would do, a smile crept over Ciel's face as the man who had been holding her from behind released her.

* * *

Misora tightly gripped the pencil she held as she tried to keep calm. 'Okay. So it's a ghoul. So what if it was a girl about my age, it's not a girl anymore. It's just a monster, that's all. And if I don't kill it, it's gonna try and kill me.' She quickly cut off any stray thoughts about what her name had been, or if she had ever fallen in love, or if she had had a family that missed her before she had become a ghoul.

"It's you or me, ghoul," Misora said as she glanced back to measure the distance between her and the wall. She darted forward and shoved the ghoul, which stumbled back, then turned and ran toward the wall.

* * *

"What is she doing?" one of the observers asked.

"Just watch," Ciel said. 'Looks like I was right.'

* * *

Misora ran straight at the wall with as much speed as she could gather in fifteen feet, jumped up and hit it feet first, and launched off the wall like a rocket, pencil held out before her.

The ghoul never saw what hit it.

* * *

"...you know, that is the first time I've ever seen someone kill a ghoul with a pencil," someone said wonderingly.

"First time you've seen it? It's the first time I've ever even _heard_ of it!" someone else replied.

"Heh, she's very imaginative," Ciel said, smiling wide. She had been struggling to teach the three girls under her charge to think instead of just act blindly, and apparently her efforts had borne fruit. So _this_ is what it felt like to be a teacher, was it?

"Begin phase two," someone said over the intercom.

"Phase two?" Ciel asked, looking around. "What is phase two?" There was a rumble over the speaker system for the testing room, and she looked up at the monitors. 'Oh no...' "What's going on here?" she demanded.

* * *

Misora looked at the ghouls pouring out into the other side of the room as the rest of the doors rolled upward and frantically started grabbing things from the desks. Rulers, pencils, pens, anything she could hold in her hand that was hard and longer than it was wide, she grabbed and stuffed into her pockets. She glared at the cameras that ringed the room, and went to work.

* * *

It was a dirty, disheveled, exhausted girl that accompanied Ciel in the taxi to the dorm building that night. The ride was long, but silent. Even the driver toned down his cursing at other cars and pedestrians, and eventually dropped it altogether.

When they finally arrived, Ciel woke up Misora and paid the driver. She helped the aching girl out of the taxi and up the stairs. She was reaching for the doorknob when it opened under her hand, revealing the dorm manager Teresa Rossi on the other side. Both women froze upon seeing each other, then Teresa's eyes went to Misora's exhausted face and she moved to help support her.

Isabella and Nina and the receptionist Rachele, who was covering for the sick Aurelia, all ran to help, and they laid Misora down on a couch in the lobby to let her rest.

While the others fawned over Misora and some of the other girls who stayed in the dorm filtered down into the lobby to find out what the fuss was all about, Ciel stood back and caught Teresa's eye.

"Elesia," the woman said stiffly as she approached.

"Teresa," Ciel replied in kind. She glanced back at Misora. "She passed her test."

"I see. Is she..."

"She'll be fine," Ciel said, frowning. She took Teresa's arm and walked to the opposite corner of the room, away from the crowd. "Something strange is going on here, and I don't like it. How long had you been training before you took your ghoul test?" she asked, turning to the manager.

Teresa frowned as she looked at Misora. "Two years, and I took mine earlier than most. She's been training six months."

Ciel nodded. "It was a level ten ghoul test," she said after a moment.

Teresa's head whipped around and her eyes bugged out as she looked at Ciel. "Level ten? I'm in the top three of the Guardian Agency and even _I've_ never had a level ten...!"

Ciel looked at her seriously. "I only had one just before I left for Japan a few years back, and you _know_ how long I've been training."

"Are they trying to kill her?" Teresa asked seriously. "For that matter, how is she still alive? A level ten test...they must have used every ghoul they've captured in the past five years!"

Ciel shook her head. "If they were trying to kill her, she would be dead. Something else is going on here, and I _will_ get to the bottom of it," she said, clenching her fists as she looked at the exhausted girl on the couch. "She has no power, no special healing skills, nothing but her mind and that pactio of hers. Teresa, she killed a hundred and thirteen ghouls today in the office scenario."

Teresa stiffened, her perpetual calm again broken. The office scenario...widely regarded to be the most difficult special combat environment. Even veterans had trouble handling more than a dozen opponents in that scenario. Teresa had never been able to handle more than fifty or so without help, and she knew Ciel could only take around seventy. A hundred and thirteen...they must have emptied their containment cells for this.

"Ciel...how is she still alive?" Teresa asked seriously, locking eyes with the woman. It was a measure of her shock that she referred to Ciel by her code name instead of the name she had had in training.

Ciel just looked at her. "I don't know. She should have died a hundred times over."

"How was she?" Teresa asked a moment later.

Ciel grinned crookedly. "Amazing." They stood there looking at Misora for a moment. "I will find out what's going on here, but for now just keep her safe."

Tereas raised an eyebrow. "Have you forgotten who I am?"

Ciel snorted and shook her head. "Good. If something happens to me..."

Teresa nodded. "We'll take care of her. Nothing can get into this building when the true defenses are activated."

Ciel looked at where Misora slept, exhausted, on the couch, and nodded. "Good."

* * *

_Author's Notes_: Please note the dates at the top of each chapter. Now that almost half a year has passed, Misora has had a lot of time to get used to Rome and learn the language. Now you know she's not a perfect Italian speaker, but she knows how to communicate pretty well by this point.

Also, No one seems to respect the impact that running into a real zombie would have on a person. Seriously, it used to be a person, and now it's a mindless _thing_ that wants to eat your flesh. I'm just waiting for someone to romanticize them like they did vampires ;p


	4. Chapter 4

Things became fairly quiet after Misora's mysterious 'Ghoul Test', and the trio of friends was left to continue on their journey to become a truly formidable force under Ciel's tutelage as the days became weeks and the weeks wore on and became months; until one day in late January...

* * *

January 26th, 2008, 6:27 p.m.

* * *

Misora zipped through the streets of Rome on her aging Vespa with Nina hanging on for dear life from behind. She had a secret meeting with Ciel at a certain shady bar, and Isabella was probably already there.

"Hang on, Nina!" she shouted. Nina said something she couldn't hear in reply, then yelped as Misora ran the old scooter up on a narrow ledge along the side of a bridge to avoid a tangle of traffic.

"I'm going to kill you, Misoraaaaa!" Nina screamed out against Misora's helmet.

"Ha! Not if I kill both of us first!" she replied as she realized the ledge they were on was rapidly coming to an end with a good thirty feet of empty space left to traverse before they could get to solid ground again. She jammed her hand into her pocket and touched her pactio card. "Adeat!"

Nina's grip around her waist tightened painfully as she realized what Misora was about to do. "Oh no oh no ohnoohnoohno...!"

Misora laughed. "Ha! Don't worry Nina, I've got it covered!" she said maniacally as she slammed one booted foot on the ledge an instant before they ran off the end, launching the scooter high in the air.

"Ohnoohnoohno!"

"Ahahahahaha!"

"MISORA! WATCH OUT FOR THAT BABY CARRIAGE!"

Misora timed it carefully and slammed both booted feet into the ground as they hit with just enough force to counteract most of the forces that would normally result in the utter destruction of an old scooter and two girls in their late teens. As it was, the scooter skidded sideways and flipped a few cartwheels, and Misora and Nina ended up sliding into a pile of trash while the scooter smacked into a wall.

Misora was up in a flash, helping Nina up. "Come on Nina, let's go!"

Nina shook her head to clear it. "Ugh...I still can't get your body-reinforcing trick to work right..." she said woozily as she carefully touched her helmet to make sure it wasn't cracked. They had hit the road _hard_.

"Well at least you've had a lot of practice," Misora said as she tugged the Vespa upright and quickly checked it over. A few dents and scratches, nothing serious. "Come on!"

Nina grumbled under her breath as she climbed back on behind Misora. "Was skipping the traffic really worth getting wrecked?" she asked. People were looking their way...

"Of course!" Misora said as she darted off and drove the scooter down an alley just wide enough for it to pass. "We saved at least fifteen minutes with that ledge."

"We could have died!" Nina shouted to be heard over the newly acquired squealing and rattling of the scooter. She jerked as one of the side mirrors was knocked off by a doorknob and missed her head by a few inches at best.

"Aw man, I just replaced that mirror last week," Misora whined as she sped on.

"You are insane," Nina replied.

* * *

Misora boldly threw open the door of the bar and strode in as if she owned the place, and the man behind the bar gave her an irritated look. It was a seedy little place located in a basement in a run-down part of town. Moth-eaten curtains decorated the bare brick walls, and stained tablecloths covered the tables. Technically it was supposed to be an American-style restaurant, but few people came here for the food, which was...greasy at best; not that that stopped the few regulars from coming. Misora spotted Ciel and Isabella at a table in the far corner facing the door and looking serious, and took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Lately, she had begun to feel like she always had back in Negi-kun's class, as if every day was full of exciting and interesting things; it was a feeling she had begun to think she would never feel again. She descended the few steps to floor level and waved at the disgruntled bartender, who sighed and waved back. Just as she sat down opposite Ciel, the door opened and Nina entered the room.

"Hello," Nina said politely to the bartender, who grinned at her and nodded as she made her way to the table.

"...you're late," Ciel said, raising an eyebrow as the two newcomers seated themselves.

Misora grinned crookedly. "Heh, well, you know Rome traffic..."

"Yes. Anyway, I have been reassigned to a long term mission in Japan again," Ciel said irritably.

The laughter dropped out of Misora's voice in an instant, and judging by the little gasp Nina made from beside her, the news had had a similar effect on her roommate. Isabella looked a little pale, but was otherwise the same as always.

"But you're our instructor! You can't be reassigned!" Misora said.

Ciel raised an eyebrow as she looked at her. "_Anyone_ can be reassigned, I thought you would know that by now, Misora. And besides, aren't you forgetting something?"

Misora just looked at her. "...what?"

"Your boots," Isabella said, failing to hold back a long-suffering sigh.

Misora looked down at the tall, dark boots she wore, and grinned sheepishly. "Heh...sorry about that. Abeat!"

"I swear, ever since you discovered your artifact's true form, you've been wearing those things everywhere," Isabella complained.

"Oh come on, they look great! And besides, you're just jealous you don't have a pactio of your own~" Misora replied.

"...can we focus here, please?" Ciel asked irritably. When she again had everyone's attention, she crossed her arms and eyed each one of them, debating how much to tell them. "My replacement has already been appointed by the church. He will arrive within the week."

"Instructor Ciel, how long before you have to leave?" Isabella asked, getting straight to the point.

"I leave tonight."

"...excuse me?"

"I said I leave tonight," Ciel replied. "The three of you will be under Rossi's jurisdiction until the new instructor arrives," she said grudgingly. The dorm manager Teresa Rossi had been one of the few who could keep up with her during training, and they had always had a...tense friendship at best. But Teresa Rossi was one of the few people Ciel felt she could trust with something this important, and the only one currently in Rome, not to mention the lucky fact that they were living in the dorm she managed for trainees of the Special Agencies. Ciel certainly hadn't expected to find Teresa running the place when she returned last year, but if ever a place needed a skilled Guardian...

"Tonight...?" Misora said.

"That's rather sudden..." Nina said calmly. Her expression was edging close to a frown.

Isabella remained silent, but Ciel could tell she was working out the truth of the matter.

"You found something, didn't you?" she asked suddenly, proving Ciel's theory correct.

"I did."

The three girls leaned in close over the table to hear her spill it.

Ciel lowered her voice. They were the only ones in the restaurant other than the owner, who was an old friend and an ex-member of the Burial Agency himself, but he couldn't get in trouble for finding out something he couldn't hear in the first place. "Someone in the church is responsible for what's been happening lately with the supernatural activities reported in the city."

Nina's gasp broke the near-silence of the room. The seriousness of the crime was tremendous, especially if it was done by a member of the church...! She quickly put a hand over her mouth and leaned forward. "Do you know who it is?"

Ciel shook her head. "No, but I have my suspicions. I was called to sit before a tribunal a little over a week ago to explain my 'suspicious actions' while investigating. They listened to what I had to say and then sent me away. I didn't hear back until earlier today. None of the typical punishments, no demotion, no lecture...just new orders."

"That can't be right," Misora said.

"It just means she stumbled upon something she wasn't supposed to know, and they don't know what else to do about it," Isabella said thoughtfully.

"Right," Ciel said.

"But why?"

Ciel looked at Misora and raised an eyebrow. "What if someone discovered something potentially embarrassing to the church, and it was of vital importance that no one else found out?"

"Well if this were a book," Nina supplied, "the church would simply kill them. But this is real life, so..."

"...so they get sent away to a place where they can't cause any trouble while the higher ups work the problem out," Isabella finished.

Ciel nodded and Misora sighed.

"But that's not fair," she said.

Ciel shook her head. "That's the way it is, though. Now listen," she said, looking each girl in the eye. "Keep your training up. You three are as wrapped up in this as I am. You are the ones who have defeated most of the things that were released into the city, after all. Stick together, keep your eyes open, and don't trust anyone until this matter is resolved."

"Not even you?" Misora asked, smirking.

Ciel gave her a serious look. "Not even me. I'll be in Japan, and I'll be under strict watch. If you receive a message or a phone call, or by some chance think you see me in person, _get away immediately._ You three get together and talk to Rossi, she'll know what to do."

"Can we trust her, though? I mean, I hate to think she would do anything bad, but you said..." Nina said.

"She is the only one you _can_ trust, once I leave," Ciel said. "Don't even trust the others living in the dorm with you. Whoever it is that's doing these things likely already has someone planted in the dorm. It could be anyone, even Rachele or Aurelia. Don't take any chances."

The girls sat there in silence, contemplating the information.

"I know it's scary, but you three are adults now. Toughen up and live through this; I have faith in you," Ciel said as she grabbed her jacket and stood up. "It's time for me to go. Be careful out there."

Misora watched her friend and instructor head for the door for a moment before she suddenly remembered something. "Hey, Ciel-sempai!"

Ciel paused and looked back.

"If you go to Mahora, say hello to Cocone for me!"

Ciel grinned slightly, nodded, and stepped through the door.

* * *

Ciel shut the door behind her and sighed as she stepped out into the street.

"Are you sure lying was the right way to handle that?" the man who had been waiting outside said.

Ciel shook her head. "No clue. But if she is the one in that old prophecy..."

The man nodded confidently. "There is no doubt."

Ciel stood there for a moment, looking at the door and clenching her fists. "You had better be right. I really don't want to do this."

The man gave her an amused look. "What, are you going soft, Ciel? You have a reputation to uphold, remember? What happened to Ciel the cold blooded executioner?"

Ciel grimaced. "That's low, Benedetto. I haven't been that way in a long time," she said irritably. Even if he _was_ an old friend, if this fell apart and those girls got hurt, she swore to herself that he would be the first to face her wrath.

My apologies," Brother Benedetto said, clearly not meaning it. "Come on, we're wasting time," he said as he started down the sidewalk. Ciel took one last look at the door, and followed.

* * *

The room descended into a heavy silence as the three girls sat around the table, each unwilling to speak up as they contemplated the sudden turn their lives had taken.

"Well..." Misora said, her tone suddenly serious. "Nina, did you ever work out that new defense circle you were working on?"

Nina was jarred back to reality upon hearing her name, but nodded. "Yes. It's not perfect, but just about everything that's not a high enough level gets stopped."

Misora nodded and turned to Isabella. "So, what've you got for us, strategist?"

Isabella raised an eyebrow as she looked at Misora, but shrugged. "I'm working on it, but this will be difficult. We need to keep our true skills absolutely secret. I have a sneaking suspicion that someone is testing us for some reason. In fact, I have had the feeling that I am being watched for almost a week now. How about you two?" she asked, looking at Misora and Nina, who looked at each other and nodded.

"The same."

"Yep."

The owner brought them some food and drinks in the silence that followed, and they dug in.

"The incidences of devil sightings have increased lately, too," Nina said after a moment.

"Yeah, after the half dozen or so little ones we caught the other day, I'm not surprised," Misora said.

The three girls fell silent as they ate, the silence of the small restaurant broken only by the scrape of forks on plates.

"...there may be more than one suspect," Isabella said after a moment.

"What do you mean?" Misora asked as she swirled her cup of cola.

"The style is very different. On one side, we have things related to Hell, devils, and religion. On the other, we have evil spirits, mind control, and magic. I have been doing a lot of research in the secret libraries, and it seems that these two sides are all but mutually exclusive. The things we have seen and faced can be neatly divided into these two camps, and both have displayed several high level aspects. It would take someone tremendously skilled in both camps to pull off what we have seen, someone with an amazing aptitude for both skill sets at the same time, and someone of that level simply does not exist. I say we are facing at least two individuals, perhaps more."

"So, two bad guys who have a lot of skill and want to kill us. Nice," Misora said sarcastically as she started chewing on a piece of ice from her drink.

"Actually, I don't know if they really want to kill us," Nina said, looking down at her plate. "If they're as strong as you say and they really did want to kill us, they would have done so already themselves."

Isabella nodded. "True. Do either one of you have anything else to add?" Misora and Nina shook their heads, and Isabella nodded. "Okay. Now what do we do about the other girls in the dorm? Instructor Ciel said-" She was cut off by a startled scream outside.

The three girls looked at each other, then down at their plates.

"Aw man, I didn't even get dessert yet," Misora grumbled as Isabella stood up and put some money on the table.

"We can get something from Nico, back home," Isabella said, smiling slightly as she looked down at her friends. More screaming came from outside.

"True."

Nina and Misora stood up and put their money down as well.

"Let's go see what abomination showed up this time," Misora said pleasantly.

* * *

"I can't believe it was _another_ mind controlled idiot!" Misora said as the trio entered the dorm. Teresa nodded to them as they entered, and Isabella nodded in return as she led the way upstairs.

"That's the third one this week," Nina said. Each time it had been some random person, apparently hypnotized, taking telepathic orders from someone they called 'Master'. For the most part, these orders seemed to be along the lines of 'Run around and cause trouble!' Why this should be so, none of them knew. It was all just a mess. They fell silent as they passed another girl on the stairs and Ciel's warnings came back to them.

"So...what should we do?" Misora asked after a moment when the coast was clear again. "I don't like this at all."

"We will just have to act like good little students," Isabella said. "Well, Nina and I will. You will just have to act like the worst student in the dorm like usual," she said to Misora, utterly deadpan.

"Ugh."

* * *

A few quiet days passed, and the trio of friends was starting to finally calm down when a message was delivered to the dorm.

* * *

Teresa gathered the three in her room and shut the door. She spoke a command word, and with a flash the room was sealed from prying ears.

"Okay, so what's going on?" Misora asked irritably. She had been in the middle of eating some _very_ delicious cake, and was not the least bit pleased to be called out in the middle of it.

Teresa looked from one to the other. "There is a vampire in our city."

Isabella's eyes narrowed. "A vampire?" she asked, her voice surprisingly low and dangerous sounding.

Misora gave her a surprised look. It was rare to hear anything in Isabella's voice other than minor irritation, but that had been flat-out _hate_.

"Yes. The first victim was found almost a month ago-" She held up a hand to wave off the girls' exclamations. "At first the police dismissed it as one of those 'vampire clubs', where normal people pretend to be vampires. While killing people and draining their blood for this purpose is rare, it is not unheard of. The second victim was found a week later, but there wasn't another found until last night. The police are still convinced it is the work of a vampire club, but one of our agents in the police force was able to examine the victim this time. It was definitely the work of a real vampire."

"So, we've just got to hunt down the vampire, right?" Misora said. Nina was uncharacteristically silent while Isabella was positively radiating hatred. "Uh...guys?"

Teresa went to the corner of the room and pulled the rug back, revealing a heavy metal trapdoor set in the floor. "Their last partner was killed by a vampire a few years ago," she said offhandedly.

"What?" Misora said as she looked back and forth between the two. "Why didn't you guys tell me?"

"It hurts to talk about it," Nina said quietly as she studied the trapdoor. Isabella was steadfastly looking at a spot on the far wall and refused to speak.

Misora looked back and forth between the two of them. "I can't believe you guys..." Nina looked away, and Isabella refused to meet her gaze.

"Come on," Teresa said as she flipped up a small panel and typed a code into a small display. The door unlocked with the hiss of escaping air and popped up several inches. She pulled the trap door the rest of the way open and started down the ladder.

* * *

The space under the dorm building was massive and more like a bunker than a basement, set up in several long hallways with thick steel walls and heavy doors like those found in bank vaults spaced every ten feet or so. The whole place was surprisingly clean and well lit; there wasn't a speck of dirt to be seen anywhere.

"Wow..." Nina said as she eyed the spell inscriptions on the walls.

"What is this place?" Misora asked. As usual, Isabella was silently taking it all in.

"I am the number three member of the Guardian Agency," Teresa said with a shrug. "The things hidden here are what I guard."

"What sort of things?" Misora asked, suddenly interested.

"If I told you, I would have to kill you," she said in a no nonsense tone.

Misora groaned and rolled her eyes. Did _anyone_ ever use that old cliché anymore?

"Magical and religious artifacts, aren't they?" Isabella asked. Teresa looked back at her and smiled crookedly, but didn't answer. "They must be very important..."

"Well this is cool and all, but what are we doing down here?" Misora asked, her curiosity completely overtaking her hurt at being left out of the loop about her friends' pasts.

"In addition to the more important items, this place also serves as an armory," Teresa explained as she led them down another hallway. She continued for thirty feet or so to the end of the hallway, where a large square door much simpler than the others was located, conveniently labeled 'Armory'. They waited while Teresa unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Misora whistled.

"Wow..." Nina said

Isabella simply grinned in anticipation as her eyes ran over the items contained within.

The armory was filled with racks upon racks of weapons and armor of all sorts, from swords to flails to spears, even modern weapons like guns and hand held rocket launchers had their place in this room.

"Wow, I bet Yuuna and Mana would have a field day in here," Misora said as she eyed four gigantic rifles attached to hooks on the wall. "What are these? I didn't know they made 'em so big."

Isabella glanced over. "Barret M82. It's an anti-materiel rifle."

Misora just looked at her blankly.

"You can shoot big holes in hard things and army vehicles with it," Isabella tried.

"Oooh," Misora said, nodding in appreciation. "So you can shoot a hole in a tank with this thing, huh?" she said, patting one of them.

"...if you hit it in the right place, I guess," Isabella said as she considered the idea. It would have to be a _very_ good shot.

Nina, meanwhile, was eying the inscriptions carved on several large, round shields. "Oh, so _that's_ how that sort of protection spell works..." She had been trying to figure it out on her own for months now, but judging by what she saw, she had been missing several important parts-

"Everyone, come over here," Teresa said, catching the girls' attention as she knelt down over a heavy strap-bound chest. When Nina, Misora, and Isabella had made their way over, she removed the lock and pulled the heavy top of the chest up, revealing a rather untidy mixture of objects.

"So...what's all this, then?" Misora asked as she reached in and took up a knife with a long, spike-like blade.

"Anti-vampire weapons," Teresa said. "Each of you take as much as you feel comfortable carrying or think you can hide in your clothes. Protection is more important than comfort at this point." She stood back and watched while they dug in, slightly amused in spite of the seriousness of the situation.

When they were finally finished, the chest was a good deal lighter, and each girl was a good deal heavier.

"In addition to this," Teresa suddenly said, "I will place holy water and other things of that nature at various locations inside the building. You three will be told the locations, but this must be kept secret from everyone else."

Nina looked up from the silver dagger she was handling. "Something is bothering me...what about the other girls? There must be thirty other girls living here, why are you only helping us?"

Teresa just looked at her for a moment. "You three are the best," she said simply. "Best at improvisation," she said, looking at Misora. "Best at human-supernatural combat and exorcism," she said, looking at Isabella. "Best at defensive and offensive protection magic," she said, looking at Nina. "If we told the other girls what is happening, most of them would panic. You three will place high in your respective agencies when you graduate from training, and I believe you are capable of making the correct decisions." She looked down at their solemn faces, and then shut the chest and replaced the lock. "Okay, let's go test those new weapons of yours, shall we?"

* * *

Two nights later in the northern outskirts of the city, a man exited a train in the dead of night, the only passenger to disembark at that particular stop. It had been quite some time since he had last been in Rome, and it was nice to be back. "Deserted as always," he said, grinning.

Very few people stopped at this particular station, which was why he had chosen it. Only a few people in the church even knew about the place, and that was the way he liked it. He gathered his few bags and was about to depart when another man strolled up casually with his hands in his pockets.

"Come back from the territories?" he asked.

The first man nodded. "Just today," he said, completing the call-and-response password as he peered into the shadows under the stranger's wide-brimmed hat to try to catch a glimpse of his face. "And you are...?"

"I am...from the church," the man replied. "Come with me."

He followed the man to a car and waited while he opened the trunk. Several streetlights were out and it was very dark here, but it looked like there was something already in the trunk. He peered closer, squinting, and reached out to push the thing out of the way so he could put his bags in. The blanket covering it slipped as he pushed, and the bundle rolled over slightly, revealing a woman's pale, bloodless face staring out into space, an expression of absolute horror forever etched in place.

The other man slipped an arm around his neck and bent him over backward before he had a chance to react, and an instant later he felt the vampire's teeth rip into his neck as he tried to scream.

* * *

_Author's Note_: Playtime's over. And what's the deal with all this cloak and dagger stuff with Ciel?

Also, note the date. This chapter occurs several months after the previous chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

February 1st. 2008, 10:35 a.m.

* * *

Rachele looked up at the stranger as he entered the lobby and glanced around. "Can I help you?" she asked pleasantly.

The man strolled up to her desk, smiled, and her heart fluttered. "Why yes, I am here to train some students. I understand their last instructor had some problems and was sent away," he said, their eyes locked together the whole time.

Rachele barely managed to tear her gaze away from the man long enough to get herself back under control. Was is suddenly hot in here...? She told the man to take a seat on one of the couches, and then went out into the hallway, where she ran into Teresa.

"Something wrong?" the older woman asked, raising an eyebrow.

Rachele smiled awkwardly, her face red, as she explained about the newcomer.

Teresa nodded. "You wait here. I'll go talk to him."

* * *

Ciel looked at the monitors from her secret location outside Rome.

"So is this the new instructor?" she asked as she watched Teresa greet the man.

Brother Benedetto nodded. "Brother Nathaniel Pratchett, British, just came off of a case about a ghoul uprising in the Ukraine."

Ciel winced. "Ukraine in the winter?"

Brother Benedetto nodded again. "He is glad to be back in Italy, 'where the weather is decent', as he puts it. He is quite skilled."

"He knows the difference between textbook combat and actual combat, right?" Ciel asked after a moment. She hated the thought of handing those girls over to someone who wasn't qualified...

"Of course."

"...I don't like him," Ciel decided. "Something about him bothers me."

Brother Benedetto glanced at her slyly. "Could it be that you're jealous? The infamous Ciel, killer of some of the strongest vampires alive, feeling the emotion of jealousy?"

Ciel gritted her teeth, but kept her silence. What was _with_ Benedetto these past few days? Everything he said was inflammatory or belittling in some way... She sighed. Then again, she was under a lot of stress, what with this ancient book of prophecies her old friend had discovered some time back. Well, several books of prophecies. In several dozen volumes. It was quite a comprehensive work, and Benedetto had discovered it in a previously hidden and forgotten library in the basement of an ancient church-owned building in the Alps some time ago; he had been given church funding and a specialized team of professionals to help translate it. Quite a bit of it had already been translated, but it was slow going. In any case the gist of it was, something was going on in the magic world that would affect both worlds, and apparently Misora had a big part to play in it; she had been all but called by name several times, and Ciel had confirmed several things with other members of the church on her own. Somehow, this had all gone under the noses of _everyone_. Not even their diplomats to the mages or the wizards seemed to know about it. She hadn't heard back from everyone else though, and that bothered her as well. Had their messages simply not gotten through, or...?

"Well, the girls won't return for several hours yet; here, take a look at this volume," Benedetto said as he hefted a thick book labeled _The End Time Prophecies, Part 1, Volume 28, Personages of Import, as Compiled by Merlin IV_.

Ciel tugged the book across the table and inspected it for a moment. "Enchanted against decay, isn't it?"

"Yes," Benedetto replied. "Quite well done, too. And, of course, compiled by Merlin the fourth, which dates it from roughly 100 to 143 A.D., when he died. The enchantment was _quite_ well done."

Ciel nodded. It was easy to enchant things against decay for a few decades or maybe even a century, but it took true skill to enchant something to last more than five hundred years, and this had been around for almost two millennia. "Volume twenty eight. Are they all this thick?" she asked, eyeing what looked to be an easy five inches of paper between the covers of the book.

Benedetto took a sip of his coffee and nodded. "Each page is made of very thick paper and only decorated on one side with elaborate writing and pictures so it's not as bad as it looks, but there are easily thousands upon thousands of people referenced. We have only identified five hundred or so the last time I checked with my team, and a great many of the people referenced only seem to serve as variables, simply there to allow others to move into their own positions, which will do little but allow still others to move into _their_ positions. Your Misora, however..."

Ciel nodded. She had read the passages herself; or translations of them, in any case.

"Behold, the Spirit of the Rabbit. Slayer of mighty beings. Always on the edge of balance, stability escapes her. The Adversary will tear her in two, and she will smile in victory," Benedetto quoted. "That seems to be the most important. Of course, it sounds much better in the original Brythonic."

"Yes, I suppose it would have to, wouldn't it?" Ciel took a sip of coffee. "What bothers me is this part about tearing her in two. Are you _sure_ this translation is correct? Are you sure it's referring to Misora?"

Benedetto nodded. "Without a doubt. The translation is fairly straightforward, especially for a prophecy. As for Misora, she is referred to as The Rabbit, The Spirit of the Rabbit, and The White Rabbit throughout the prophecies. She is one of those the other 'Personages of Import' exist to support. As for 'The Adversary will tear her in two,' that could mean many things; you know how prophecy is. It could be something as simple as forcing her to make a decision, or, as you fear, physically tearing her in half. Consider, however, that she 'will smile in victory', which gives things a more positive spin, no?"

"You could be right. I hope you're right. But I still don't like the sound of it. And who is this 'Adversary' anyway?"

Benedetto shrugged. "_The_ Adversary, I should think. The enemy of all humankind."

Ciel sighed and shook her head to clear it. She went back to the monitors. All this talk of prophecies and alternate interpretations was giving her a headache. 'I was never a scholar anyway,' she thought dismissively as she began scanning through the views offered by the secret cameras she had installed throughout the dorm building. Aurelia had disappeared some time the week before, telling no one where she had gone. She had simply been there one day and gone the next, her apartment left empty. Several of the other girls living in the dorm had begun acting strangely in recent weeks too, and it bothered her. She was probably overthinking things again, but it never hurt to be careful.

* * *

"So what happened after you told him no?" Isabella asked Nina as they climbed the steps to the dorm.

Nina blushed, but continued the story she had been telling anyway. "Misora pretended to be my...my girlfriend. Ugh, I can't believe you made me say it!" she said, covering her face while Misora burst into laughter.

Isabella looked at Misora. "You pretended to be her _girlfriend_?"

"Heh, you should have seen the guy's face," Misora said, grinning wide. "You should've seen _Nina's_ face, for that matter," she said as she put a hand on the doorknob and looked back at Nina, pausing.

Isabella watched in slightly horrified interest as Misora's amused grin changed to _that_ grin; the one Isabella associated with a big prank coming up fast on Misora's part.

Misora let go of the doorknob and stepped lightly down the steps, eying Nina speculatively as the other girl looked at a cute boy walking by on the other side of the street.

"Nina-chan~" she purred as she slid up behind the girl and slipped an arm around her waist.

"What the—Ah...! Don't touch me there Misora!" Nina squealed. The boy across the street looked over at them, froze mid step for perhaps two seconds while Misora molested her poor roommate, then ducked his head and walked away quickly.

Misora pulled her hand out of Nina's shirt, laughing wildly. "Oh man, you should see the look on your face!"

"You...you..._you_!" Nina said, unable to think of a suitable insult. "Gah, how am I supposed to show my face around here now?"

Isabella sighed and rolled her eyes as she opened the door and stepped into the lobby. Rachele looked up at her from her desk and smiled dazedly. The man that had been talking to her turned to look at Isabella as well. He nodded and smiled so slightly she almost missed it altogether. Misora gave her a little shove from behind, so she moved over to allow the other two, still bickering over Misora's prank, to enter the lobby as well.

Nina paused nervously upon seeing the stranger, but Misora had no such problem.

"Heya Rachele. Who's this guy?"

"'This guy'," the man said as the corner of his mouth twitched upward, "is Nathaniel Pratchett, here to replace your previous instructor. Now, you are Isabella Lombardi and you are Nina Bianchi," he said, looking at each girl in turn. "And while I don't recognize you, you can only be Kasuga Misora," he said, looking at Misora.

The laughter went out of Misora's face upon hearing the man's introduction. Something about him seemed off, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "That's right," she said solemnly. The two of them looked at each other for a long moment, and Misora's feelings of disquiet only grew stronger.

Isabella broke the moment by brushing past Misora and approaching the man. She gave him a hard look, and Misora realized she wasn't the only one who felt discomfited by him.

"So you are to be our new instructor," Isabella stated.

"Yes, I am," the man replied, his voice growing hard.

Misora realized Nina had moved behind her when the girl absently grabbed the end of her sleeve.

"What can you do?" Isabella asked; the tension in the room suddenly sharpened.

"I can do many things," the man replied.

"Such as?"

"Isabella Lombardi, stand down immediately," Teresa said, drawing everyone's attention as she stepped out of her office. Isabella ducked her head and stepped away while Teresa gave Rachele a reproachful look and approached the man. She stopped in front of him, then gave the three girls a sharp look. "We will discuss this later," she stated.

Misora and Nina shrank back, but Isabella refused to wilt under the manager's stare; she simply put it off until later as she took Misora and Nina by the hand and pulled them toward the stairs. They heard Teresa speaking as they began climbing the first flight. "Please, forgive them. They were quite attached to their last instructor..."

The frown on Misora's face was an unusual sight, but Nina had a similar expression, and Isabella's own expression was harder than usual as well.

"I don't like him," Misora said, voicing the thoughts of the other two.

Nina nodded and shivered, crossing her arms. "He's just...cold, I guess. Not like emotionally or anything, I mean, just, well...cold." Misora and Isabella nodded, earning grateful smiles from Nina.

"Like a lizard or something," Misora added.

"I know what you mean," Isabella said. "I think..." she trailed off as another girl passed them. "I think we should be very careful around him. No one sees him alone, no one walks around alone," she whispered. Misora and Nina nodded at her.

"Are you going to be all right?" Misora asked seriously. "I mean, you have your own room..."

"I will be fine," Isabella said with an air of finality.

"I'll help you protect your room," Nina offered. "I know some protection spells that would be perfect..."

Misora tuned their conversation out as the trio climbed up to the fifth floor, where both their rooms were located. Something about that guy just bothered her...

* * *

"Well come at me then," Nathaniel Pratchett said as Misora got back up on her hands and knees in the practice field almost a week later. She almost growled at the disinterested look on the man's face. "Is this it? Is this really all you three are capable of?" he asked, looking the three tired and bruised girls over as they lay here and there where they had fallen. "My predecessor must have been a terrible trainer if this is all you can handle."

"...Ciel was a good trainer..." Misora said under her breath. Nathaniel quickly stepped over to where she was trying to push herself up and grabbed her arm, lifting her into the air painfully. He gave her a hard shake, and she gritted her teeth, hoping her shoulder wouldn't get yanked out of joint.

"Excuse me? What was that? I didn't hear you," he said, looking her in the eye with his own normally lifeless gaze now full of anger. Misora shuddered, but met that gaze and held it. His face stiffened and he frowned.

"I said, Ciel was a much better trainer than you!" she shouted in his face.

He just looked at her for a moment, then tossed her aside and walked away off the training field.

Isabella and Nina dragged themselves over to Misora.

"You shouldn't antagonize him," Nina said as she began trying to heal the bigger bruises.

"I hate him," Misora spat. "This isn't training, it's just him beating us up!" And it was true, too; every 'training session' had begun with a few minutes of stretching, followed immediately by three on one combat. The first day had been rough if only because they were unused to such treatment; but the beatings had grown worse as days went by, finally ending up with today's one sided affair.

Isabella kept her mouth clamped shut. She knew if she started now, she wouldn't be able to stop until she had charged into the man's bedroom and strangled him to death with her bare hands. She took a deep breath, held it in, let it out slowly. Good. Well, a _little_ better, anyway. "We must bear with it a little longer. I have sent an anonymous complaint to his superiors, but..."

Misora groaned when Nina poked a particularly bad bruise. While all three had been beaten up by the man, Misora had gotten the worst of it by far simply because she didn't know when to shut up and fall back. Well, either that or the desire, shared by all three, to beat the living daylights out of the man.

After a moment, a nervous clerk rushed out onto the field, clenching his hands together. "U-um, that...uh...that will be all for today, I'm afraid," he said, looking back over his shoulder, back the way he had come. "Come back tomorrow at the same time, okay?" He didn't wait for a reply, but instead scurried back toward the building.

Nina, Isabella, and Misora watched him go in silence.

"Looks like other people don't like him either," Misora said as Nina helped her to her feet.

"That man was afraid of him," Isabella stated. This was troubling; she had personally witnessed that particular clerk face down a minor devil single-handed several months ago, no small task for an exorcist, much less someone with a desk job.

"Rachele seems to like him, so he can't be _that_ bad," Nina said hopefully. 'Oh please please _please_ don't let him be that bad...!' she prayed.

Misora just looked down at her hands as she thought about today's 'training'. In the first of his training sessions, he had simply been playing with them, deflecting their attacks with ease and hitting them hard when they left themselves open, but not really out of any particular meanness; more out of boredom, it seemed to Misora. But lately, he had begun to get more serious. She knew, as aggravating as it was, that the three of them had become much tougher opponents than they had been in the beginning, but unlike what she expected of a teacher, he seemed to be getting annoyed by that. Out of all the training sessions they had had with the man up to this point, today's had by far been the worst.

He had struck at Misora with intent to kill clear in his eyes, _and she had deflected his attack_. He had been so stunned that she had landed the only clean hit any of them had ever gotten, sending him staggering back until he tripped and fell in a heap on the ground. Silence had reigned over the practice field as Nina and Isabella stared, slack-jawed, at Nathaniel Pratchett lying on his back in the dirt. He hadn't taken that very well. After that point the intent to kill had disappeared, and he had simply settled for beating her half to death in humiliating fashion. The beating had been worse than any other he had given her, but somehow in spite of the pain it hadn't seemed so bad, and he seemed to sense that something had changed in her. It obviously bothered him.

Misora grinned, then winced as her swollen face protested. It had been a rough week.

* * *

Ciel slumped down in a chair and heaved a weary sigh as she grabbed a notebook and pencil. It had been a rough week. Apparently, her old friend Benedetto had developed some strange habits in the time since they had last met, not to mention quite a temper. She had been convinced they would come to blows several times over disagreements on the stupidest things...the coffeepot seemed to spark the most incidents. She rolled her eyes and glanced over the monitors again. The dorm was fairly quiet...

Oho, what was this?

The replacement instructor had returned to the dorm, and was currently making time with Rachele. Ciel watched for a moment as the other woman laughed silently at some remark, and wished she had thought to add hidden microphones to go with the cameras.

"Ciel! Where is my spellbook?" Benedetto bellowed from another room.

Ciel heaved a sigh as she stood up, cupped her hands around her mouth, and answered with a bellow of her own. "Do I look like your mother? Find it yourself!"

Honestly...

"Ciel!"

Ciel grumbled a curse under her breath and smacked the notebook and pencil down on the table and shoved the chair back. "Idiot," she muttered as she left the room just in time to miss seeing Rachele lead the instructor into the manager's room.

* * *

_Author's Note_: I'll warn you now, things next chapter will be rough. In any case, this was a short one, huh? Half the length of Chapter 3, and a few pages shorter than Chapter 4.


	6. Chapter 6

February 21st, 2008

* * *

Nina clung to Misora like her life depended on it as the other girl drove her beaten, rattling scooter through Rome in the failing evening light to the plaza where the latest devil had been sighted. They had been called out of the dorm more and more often lately, and all three of them were becoming irritable from lack of sleep. She felt bad about it of course, but...

There.

The devil was a much larger one this time, taller than a man and twice as wide. It carried a staff of some sort, which it was waving around and using to set fire to things. Nina shivered. Misora looked back at her, but Nina frantically motioned for her to look at the road ahead. She could see Isabella already there in the plaza fighting the devil...this was bad. He must have gone after some civilians or something if Isabella had started fighting him alone...

Misora hopped the curb and drove the scooter out into the plaza, finally coming to rest beside a tree. The two of them dismounted the scooter and Nina took off her helmet while Misora leaned the badly beaten little Vespa against the tree; the kickstand had long since fallen off.

"Looks like a tough one. Give me a series of arrows?" Misora asked as her eyes tracked the action.

"Okay," Nina replied. "Twenty three light?"

"That'll work."

They trotted closer while Isabella got the devil's attention from across the plaza so it would turn its back to them.

"Usual double team?"

"Yeah," Misora replied.

"'kay."

Misora moved out, circling around the plaza while Nina moved to stay out of its line of sight. They had faced a couple others like this one; they were tough, but manageable once you realized how to fight them.

Nina began gathering energy while Misora and Isabella moved into position. It was a measure of how well they worked as a team that Isabella knew exactly where to go when she hadn't even spoken to the other two girls.

Nina waited for Misora's signal...waited...waited...there.

"Let the twenty three spirits of Light shoot arrows at the enemy!"

"Adeat!" Misora shouted from across the plaza.

The light arrows blasted the devil off balance as he whirled around to face Nina, but Isabella had already darted up and cut the back of his legs with her knives. The demon fell clumsily to the ground just in time for Misora to come down through the air, her skirt flipped up by the wind to reveal bicycle shorts beneath, to land on its face boot-first with a satisfying crunch. She jumped off while Isabella moved away on the other side, and Nina began her second spell while the devil flailed around on the ground, its crushed face beginning to reform already.

"Spirits of light, Arrow series, Continuous fire!" It was an original spell, and one she was quite proud of. Already several papers had been written on the simple spell and what it said about the mindset of the mages, who had somehow missed such an obvious idea. It worked by creating a ball of energy that remained in location in front of the mage, constantly shooting single magic arrows by draining the mage's power at a steady rate. As a bonus, firing off single arrows took far less power than firing volleys of arrows the old fashioned way, though it _was_ slower. The devil took seventy three before finally disappearing in a cloud of sulfurous gases.

Nina cut off the spell and staggered while Misora and Isabella ran up to support her.

"That one was tougher than usual," Isabella said as she looked at the blackened stones where the devil had been sent back to hell.

"Yeah, I must not have hit him right," Misora said as she helped Nina over to a bench, where the girl almost collapsed.

"That took...*gasp*...a lot of power...*gasp*..." Nina said as her vision blurred and refocused.

"You should sit still," Isabella ordered as she passed Nina a bottle of water.

"I would help with the magic arrows if I could, but...well...heh," Misora offered sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. She only had enough power to activate simple spell circles; anything more power-intensive left her unconscious. Isabella wasn't any good either; she had enough power, but not anywhere near enough control to use magic arrows safely. Fire magic, Isabella's strong suit in magic, didn't usually have much of an effect on devils, anyway.

"There's nothing we can do about it but keep training," Isabella said as she wiped some of the devil's blood from her knives. It was quite corrosive; if one were to leave it on a knife overnight, the blade would be pitted heavily and ruined by the next morning, often within the hour. Leave it on your skin, and, well...suffice to say the effect was much worse than a sunburn.

The team in charge of cleanup arrived shortly thereafter. Misora, Nina, and Isabella gave their report and decided to head back to the dorm.

* * *

Ciel smiled slightly as she considered what she had just watched on the computer Benedetto had set up for her. He had gone out to Rome to video the fight, which he streamed back to her via internet. She didn't quite understand the system, but it let her watch her students in action, so she didn't really care. The slight smile became a full on toothy grin as she recalled how smoothly the three girls had worked together. Teamwork! _That_ was the sort of teamwork that she had been trying to teach them!

The phone rang, so she picked it up as the video ended.

_'Did you see that?'_ Benedetto asked on the other end.

"Yes. They're good, aren't they?" she asked rhetorically. Good? They had been great! That class of devil was no pushover.

_'Yes. I am curious as to how they would handle some of the tougher devils-'_

"Summon something they can't handle and I'll kill you myself," Ciel said pleasantly. Honestly, what was she even doing associating with a devil summoner anyway? And one in the church...! Not too long ago, she would have executed him on the spot, old friend or not! But...it was those prophecies again. Helping to prepare Misora for whatever she had to face, Benedetto had said. Helping get her used to life or death combat, where even one's soul was in danger. Ciel sighed. 'Maybe I'm just going soft?' She realized Benedetto was talking again. "What did you say?"

_'I have an errand to run here in the city; I will return late,'_ he said.

"Okay. I'll expect a report on the battle when you get back," Ciel replied, then hung up on him before he could reply. She _hated_ being unable to accompany Nina, Misora, and Isabella in their battles. She knew it was necessary for them to do this themselves, but that didn't mean she had to like it, sitting here in this house on the outskirts of Rome. She felt far too disconnected from them, and something about that bothered her.

She went back to the monitors, which were located in a different room. She scanned through the images from the dorm and frowned. That was odd...the dorm was unusually quiet, and the reception desk was empty. Where was Rachele? For that matter... She scanned through the cameras, stopping abruptly as the view switched to one of the stairwells. She just stared at the image for a moment, shocked, and was out of her chair and rushing to her room on the other side of the house in seconds.

'I hope I can get there in time...!'

The image on the monitor wasn't that unusual. Just a stairwell; the shape lying sprawled out halfway down the stairs and obscured by the stair railing, however, most definitely was. The shape's lifeless hand, flung out as if she had fallen and simply not gotten back up, lay in clear view of the camera, shockingly pale and bloodless.

* * *

"Feeling any better yet Nina?" Misora asked as she and Isabella helped support the staggering girl down the street in front of the dorm. It was already getting dark.

"...a little, I guess," Nina replied. "I just can't catch my breath..."

A silence fell over the trio as they paused in front of the door and contemplated how best to get Nina up the stairs. The fight had been tough on Nina; she had used a lot of power, killing that devil...it would take quite some time to recover.

Isabella opened the door and stepped inside, looking around.

Misora helped support Nina up the steps and into the doorway, and shut the door after them. She helped Nina over to one of the couches and sat her down there.

"Hey, where's Rachele?" Misora asked.

"I don't know," Isabella said as she looked around. "Doesn't it seem awful quiet?"

"Yeah..."

"I'll go check our rooms," Misora said, frowning now.

Isabella nodded. "I'll see if I can find the manager."

Nina staggered to her feet. "I'll help-"

"Oh no you won't," Misora said as she trotted over. She pushed Nina back down on the couch and put her hands on her hips in full-on housewife mode. "You are going to stay right there and rest until we figure out what's going on."

Nina looked to Isabella, but the redhead just shook her head. She sighed. "Okay...but if you need help, call me."

"Don't worry about it," Misora said jauntily as she walked over to the stairs. "I'll be back as fast as you can say, uh...Rumpelstiltskin? Yeah, that one. See ya in a minute!" she said as she ran up the stairs.

"I'll check the rest of the first floor," Isabella said as she strode purposefully away, leaving Nina alone in the lobby.

She sat there on the couch for a moment, trying not to let her imagination get the best of her, when she realized something seemed out of place. She pulled herself up and walked across the room to the receptionist's desk. Something seemed weird, something about the way things were placed on the desk. The pencil cup was overturned for one thing, so she set it up straight and put all the pencils back in. There were several papers scattered across the desk, and the romance novel Rachele had been reading for the past few days sat on the desk as if it had been suddenly dropped.

Something still seemed wrong, so she stood there for a moment with her hands on her hips as she contemplated the desk. She was about to move around behind it to push the chair back in place when someone put a hand on her shoulder.

* * *

Misora started up the stairs two at a time, but slowed to a more normal pace after the first flight. The sound of her footsteps echoed crazily in the narrow stairwell, making it sound almost as if someone else was in there with her. She paused for a moment, and the sound immediately stopped.

"Heh, look at me, getting all freaked out," she said much more cheerfully than she felt. 'Come on Misora, reality is calling...'

She shook her head, took a deep breath, and continued on up the stairs. She paused on the stairwell, looking at the open door to the fifth floor, where her room was located. The hall was deserted, but...she shivered. Something felt _wrong_.

"Okay, back downstairs I go," Misora said loudly. Anything was better than the sheer _nothing_ that she heard now, even her creepily echoing voice in the stairwell. She turned around to head downstairs again, but something lying against the wall on the fifth floor landing caught her attention.

'Please please _please_ tell me that's not what I think it is...' she thought to herself as she calmly and slowly—very slowly—walked closer to the object. It was a familiar purse; she had seen one of the other girls carrying it just the other day. A unusual shadow on the stairs screamed for her attention, and she reluctantly turned to look. The chest-height wall that served as a stair railing blocked her view, however, so she moved forward and stopped again just before the stair rail could reveal whatever was lying there. She took a big gulp of air and moved forward.

She knew the dead girl; there was no way she wouldn't recognize that frizzy brown hair.

She had been fairly new to the dorm, arriving perhaps two months after Misora, and had been assigned a room just down the hall from the one shared by Misora and Nina. They hadn't ever really spoken; the girl had always seemed too shy. But...she had been a good kid, only a couple years younger.

Misora bent over the body, which was lying on its stomach, and lightly prodded it with her finger. It was still warm. She gave it an experimental push, and then took hold of the other side and rolled the poor dead girl over.

A pale, horrified face with bulging, glassy eyes greeted her, its mouth forever locked in a rictus of pain, its throat torn out as if by a rabid dog, _and not a drop of blood anywhere._

Misora screamed.

* * *

Isabella walked down the long hallway, glancing into whatever rooms had open doors as she went. They were all dark. She poked her head into the darkened kitchen and glanced around.

"Hello?"

Nothing. Nico, their cook, was _always_ in there. This was troubling...there was something lying in the shadows.

She frowned and loosened her favorite knife in its sheath. "Is anybody here?" she called out more loudly as she carefully stepped into the kitchen.

No reply at all, just the echo of her voice. Maybe everyone had gone out to watch a game or a show? Surely not! She paused as the shape came into view, then carefully, very carefully, backed away to the door and reached out blindly for the light switch. The lights came on and she bit back a scream. There on the floor beside the preparation tables lay two girls in a pool of blood, eyes wide and unseeing. Even from here, she could see the chef's knife buried to the hilt in one girl's chest, and the deep, deep slash across the other girl's throat. She moved a little closer and saw another in the corner, lying against the lower cupboards as if she had been thrown with great force. And, now that she had moved this far into the room, she spotted Nico, leaning back against the far end of the preparation table, hidden by the table and only recognizable by the long, ragged scar across the top of his right hand, which he seemed to be using to prop himself up.

"...Nico? Is that you?" she asked hesitantly, stepping wide around the two dead girls as she approached.

"Stop, don't come any closer," he replied, his voice strained and hoarse.

Isabella froze. "Nico..."

"I said don't come any closer, dammit! I don't want to, but if you're one of them, I'll kill you too!"

Isabella's breath quickened. "Nico, what happened?" She could see him moving now, dragging himself upright with the tabletop. He stood there for a moment, looking at her.

"You're...still you, right?" he asked after a moment.

"Yes...?" Isabella said, backing away slightly. Her eyes drifted back to the dead girls. She knew she should be feeling something right now; fear, disgust, anger, but instead she felt...nothing. Clear. Ready. "What happened here?"

Nico blinked a couple times and wiped some of the blood from his face as he looked at her. Finally he spoke. "You're really you, thank God. Come on," he said, coming around the table, cleaver in one hand, long chef's knife in the other. "We have to go-"

"Wait. You will tell me what's going on before I go _anywhere_ with you," Isabella said. Nico just looked at her for a moment before apparently realizing what the scene in the kitchen must look like.

He barked a harsh laugh. "They're vampire slaves," he said, disgust clear in his voice. "Half the girls were like this, and the other half are dead. I don't know who the leader is, but he must've been here for _months_ to turn as many as he did."

Isabella's jaw tightened. _Vampires_...! And now the other girls were all dead, or as good as dead.

"Don't worry about fighting your friends, they're all dead," Nico said.

Isabella focused back on Nico. What had she just heard in his voice? Regret? But he had always seemed so distant... And why the hell was she thinking so clearly?

"He did something, I'm pretty sure he killed them all. Probably sucked them dry upstairs. These three would've been up there too, if they had managed to kill me," Nico said as he staggered around the table.

"You're hurt..." Isabella said as she eyed the cook. He was covered in blood, his white chef's clothes stained crimson, torn and ragged. He was heavily favoring his right side, and blood was running down his left leg from a terrible gash in his thigh.

"Tch, I've been through worse," Nico said plainly as he moved past her to the door and looked out into the hall. Something knocked over a garbage can in the alley, and Isabella heard him heave a sigh and mutter "Oh, hell" just before the glass windows blew inward and devils poured into the hall.

* * *

Nina jumped and whirled around and almost gutted Teresa, who staggered back just in time to avoid Nina's knife. When she saw Teresa's condition, she quickly sheathed the knife and helped the injured woman over to the couch. "Oh no...what happened to you?" she asked as she checked over Teresa's wounds.

"He's a vam-"

She was interrupted by a blood-curdling shriek from the stairwell, followed immediately by breaking glass and a shout of "Devils!" from one of the hallways. The electricity flashed out suddenly, and they were buried in darkness for a few seconds before the backup generator kicked on as running footsteps headed for the lobby from several directions, and the sounds of combat filled the building.

"What's going on?" Nina asked as Isabella rushed into the lobby from the hallway and locked the front door.

"Devils outside in the alley! I saw five or six, we're under attack!"

Misora barreled out of the stairwell, breathless and terrified. "Somebody killed Karina! Tore her throat out, and there's no blood!"

"Vampire!" Isabella spat, then finally saw Teresa. She rushed over and took the bloody woman's hand. "What happened to you?"

Teresa struggled to sit up straight, her face contorted in pain. "He's a vampire," she said. "Pratchett, he's a vampire. He probably killed the real Pratchett and took his place."

"Oh, Rachele..." Misora said sadly as she looked behind the reception desk and spotted the friendly receptionist's body, which had been crammed into the space under the desk.

"They're all dead," Teresa said tiredly. "All the girls. He told me so himself; he's been feeding on them for months, there's no telling who he was impersonating all that time..."

Something began huffing and squealing and banging on the front door, and Isabella straightened up, all but snarling. "Devils. He must have summoned them. How long will the protective wards last?"

Teresa shrugged. "Five minutes, maybe ten. They aren't meant to withstand a siege; they're just designed to give the defenders time to prepare the real defenses."

"So, how do we defend?" Misora asked.

The lobby fell quiet as Nina and Misora looked at each other, then at Teresa, who seemed to be fading fast.

"Holy water, anti-devil spells, holy weapons...I can't...I..." Teresa said tiredly as she slumped further into the couch. She coughed, spraying blood through her fingers as she tried to cover her mouth. "Get my crossbow," she said, her voice thick and wet sounding. Misora rushed off into the manager's office while Teresa went into another coughing fit, spraying blood droplets everywhere.

"No...!" Nina said as she knelt over Teresa and tried to help her sit up straight. She could barely see anything in the red emergency lights, but there were splashes of some dark fluid on Teresa's side, legs, and the middle of her chest. Teresa groaned as Nina helped her lie down.

"Oh Teresa, what happened to you?" she asked tearfully.

"He hit me hard," Teresa said dully. "Something's broken inside...You girls...hah...you girls need to get away...he'll ki-" She was interrupted mid-word by another coughing fit. She looked up at Nina's face, her eyes wandering as she tried to focus. Something was wrong, something about...what was...? She felt herself fading out.

"Isabella! Hurry, help me!" Nina said frantically. "Hurry!" she repeated when Isabella didn't reply. She glanced back at Isabella, who was looking out through a window at the road, and staggered tiredly over to her. That fight earlier had taken a lot more out of her than she had initially thought... "Isabella, what are you...wait!"

Isabella turned, looked her in the eye, and rammed her hand through Nina's stomach.

* * *

"I got it! I got the crossbow!" Misora said, carrying the weapon against her chest as she exited the office. Time slowed to a crawl as she watched Nina walk up to Isabella. Something in Isabella's stance was all wrong; Isabella wasn't that big for one thing, and even in this light Misora could tell her skin was far, far too pale. She barely even realized she had pulled the bowstring back and locked it in place as the thing that looked like Isabella pulled its arm back. The bolt went smoothly into its slot on the body of the crossbow as the thing's clawed hand drove into the soft place under Nina's ribcage. Nina was still folding over when Misora hefted the crossbow to eye level, and the thing hadn't even removed its hand from Nina's guts yet when Misora pulled the trigger.

The silver-tipped bolt drove deep into the thing's side, and it let out an enraged roar and it's shape blurred and shifted in a maddening display as features melted away and emerged anew until a tall, strongly built man stood in the middle of the lobby over Nina's body. He reached up, took hold of the crossbow bolt, and yanked it out, the bloodless wound left steaming. He looked at Misora, and she dropped the crossbow and yanked out a knife as he crossed the room in three long strides.

Misora swiped at his neck, but he caught her wrist in his hand and squeezed until she let out a scream and dropped the knife.

"That was a mistake, girl," he said as he lifted her up in the air by her wrist.

"L-let me go, y-you monster!" Misora demanded, her voice high pitched and terrified.

"Shut up," he said calmly as he slammed her into the wall. Misora grunted with the impact, but it seemed to jar something back into place mentally.

"What did you do to Isabella?" she demanded as she kicked him in the gut.

He didn't react to the blow. "The devils should be taking care of her in the back hallway by now, I suppose," he said blandly as he turned to glance back across the room at Teresa. He reached down and picked up the knife Misora had dropped, then absently flicked it across the room, where it sank into Teresa's stomach. Teresa let out a squealing breath and folded forward on the couch, clutching the hilt of the knife in her abdomen with both hands. Misora struggled wildly, kicking him as hard as she could and trying to grab his face with her free hand until he snatched that wrist too and held it against the wall.

"You are a handful, aren't you?" he asked, making an expression that was probably supposed to pass for a grin. The fangs ruined the image. He absently brought up a knee and slammed it into her stomach, driving the breath from her lungs. He abruptly let go of her, and she dropped to the floor in a gasping heap.

There was a shout outside, followed by an otherworldly squeal of pain and fear, and another shout. Something exploded, and then the front door was blown from its hinges and none other than Ciel stepped in, wielding a large hand held pilebunker and wearing an odd short blue dress. Misora pushed herself half up to see what was happening and her eyes met Ciel's for a moment across the room. Ciel turned her attention back to the vampire and Misora shivered. This was definitely _not_ the Ciel that had been their instructor, the Ciel that had eaten lunch with them and loved curry and joked about boys with them. This Ciel was another creature altogether.

* * *

Ciel looked around the room, eyed Teresa breathing messily on the couch, the body of poor Nina lying on the carpet in a rapidly spreading pool of red, and Misora, trying to catch her breath and deal with the agony in her stomach. Her gaze went to the vampire, and he took an unconscious step back at what he saw.

"You are the vampire known as Dexter Marlowe, one of the Great Vampire Lords from Mundus Magicus. The Church has seen your crimes," Ciel said in a deep, authoritative tone.

"Oh? And what are you going to do about it, executioner of the church?" Marlowe asked, once again sure of himself. Ciel's eyes widened at the sound of steel scraping against leather. She whirled around just in time to avoid the wild downward swing of Benedetto's sword. She brought the pilebunker around in a vicious arc and over a hundred pounds of metal smashed into the side of her old friend's head. Marlowe rushed her, fast as thought, as she struggled to bring the weapon to bear, but he was too fast and Ciel was sent flying by a swift blow to the chest. She bounced off the wall hard and hit the floor. Benedetto's control of the devils outside, already tenuous at best, snapped as he struggled to retain consciousness. The devils surrounding the building outside, freed of the constraints put on them by their summoner, howled in rage and excitement and began to run wild.

Marlowe strolled over and kicked Ciel in the side before she could get up. "Hmph. That is the problem with you people. Always talking, never actually paying attention. So easy to fool, too." He kicked her into the wall. "Your friend over there in the doorway has been under my spell for _years_. Who do you think convinced him to become a heretic and learn to summon devils, hmm?" he asked, kicking her again. Ciel clamped her teeth together, refusing to cry out as he kicked her again.

"Adeat!"

Marlowe whirled to face Misora, too slow, and Misora's knee connected with his face with the force of a freight train. He let out a garbled yell as he was thrown across the room and hit the corner of the receptionist's desk, smashing it back into the wall as he rolled into the darkness of the unlit interior hallway beyond, where he disappeared in the shadows.

Misora rushed over to Ciel, who was already getting to her feet. "Ciel! I'm so glad you're here! Nina's hurt bad and-"

"Nina is dead," Ciel said abruptly, her voice cold and professional and only slightly strained. "The other students are all dead, Teresa is dying, and Isabella is likely dead as well." She fixed Misora in place with her stare. "Do you want to avenge them?"

Misora, who had gone quiet at the first 'dead', nodded silently.

"Good," Ciel said as she picked up her pilebunker. Benedetto reached out and grabbed her foot.

"Thiel," he said through his mangled face and jaw, miraculously still alive. "He'll kill hou, Thiel."

Ciel just looked down at him in disgust. "Go to hell."

Misora glanced back at the man as Ciel headed toward the shadowy hallway, then moved to follow her teacher.

* * *

Isabella thrust her knife at the devil standing in her way, burying the blade in its throat. It was a sloppy thrust, and the blade, badly used and heavily damaged by the corrosive materials that had been spilled with it, snapped off near the hilt. Nevertheless, the lesser devil exploded in a cloud of sulfurous gas and Isabella stumbled past, coughing raggedly as she pressed her eyes shut against the corrosive gasses. She pushed on down the hallway, limping in agony and using the wall to help support herself. She had no idea what had happened to Nico in the chaos of the dark hallway.

She slipped into the first open room to try and catch her breath. "Damn devils..." she muttered, her voice strained and wet sounding. She coughed again and almost collapsed at the sheer agony in her chest. The devils hadn't given them any time to plan; they had burst through the windows and flooded the unlit hallway in an instant and, even before she could react, Nico had shoved her out of the way as a big one made a wild swing for her head, then she had been among them, pushing and shoving and trying not to get torn apart before she could draw her knife. Something had struck her a tremendous blow in the chest, and she could tell something in there was wrong. She had a feeling several of her ribs were broken at the least, maybe even her sternum, but at least nothing had punctured her lungs; her breathing was free of the foam she had been taught to search for in the case of a pierced lung.

That didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell, though.

She stepped badly and put too much weight on her twisted ankle and had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from crying out as she fell in an agonized heap on the ground. She lay there for several minutes, tears in her eyes, as she listened. The sounds of combat from the way she had come seemed to have stopped; either the demons had won, or Nico had managed to defeat them. Somehow she had a feeling it wasn't the latter. She struggled back to her feet and peeked out around the door frame, looking down the dark hallway. Just another thirty feet, then a right turn into the east hall, and then follow that seventy feet or so, and then could she find out what had happened to her friends in the lobby.

She started off again.

* * *

Ciel stalked straight into the darkness of the hall where Marlowe had disappeared, but Misora paused where the shadow of the wall cut across the floor, forming the border between the lobby and the darkened hallway, and looked back at the others. Teresa was bent over on the couch, breathing noisily as she concentrated on surviving, but poor Nina still lay curled up in a puddle of blood on the floor. Misora glanced back into the darkness where Ciel had gone, than trotted back over to Nina and knelt down to check the girl's pulse.

"Oh, Nina..." she said sadly as she looked at the corpse of the first friend she had made here. Nina had been the first to make an effort to know her, Nina had been the first to try and teach her the language, Nina had been the one to introduce her to Isabella, a girl she had dismissed as a cold, distant brat when they had their first brief meeting in the stairwell on her first morning in the dorm. Together, the three of them had become strong enough to face devils and demons alone; for that matter, the three of them had accomplished things in the short months she had been here that veterans of the special agencies had thought impossible. The three of them had been a perfect match.

And now, Nina was dead, and probably Isabella too.

Misora stood up and absently wiped some of Nina's blood off her hand onto her skirt. There would be time for mourning later. She swiped the growing moisture from her eyes, smacked some dust from one of her boots, and strode purposefully into the darkness of the hallway, following in Ciel's footsteps.

* * *

The Bishop Marco Costa, the man in charge of the Secret Agencies, was jolted out of a sound sleep by the sound of a ringing telephone. He sat up and reached for the telephone by his bed.

"Bishop Costa," he said. "...what? WHAT? Alert the Guardian Agency and Special Exorcism Agencies immediately! If anyone from the Burial Agency is still in Rome, alert them as well. We go into battle at once!"

He slammed the phone down in its cradle and was out of bed in an instant. He walked over to the locked wardrobe by the closet and paused. He hadn't opened it in almost ten years; he hadn't had need of any of the things in there since then. But...times were changing, apparently. When one of the Great Vampire Lords decided to walk freely on the Earth, steps had to be taken.

He opened the wardrobe and took out a large, lightly glowing sword. "Sorry I have neglected you, old friend," he said softly as he propped it against the wall and began preparing his other equipment. For the first time in fifteen years, Slayer Marco was going to war.

* * *

Misora stepped into the darkness of the hall and flattened herself against the wall. Her hearing, naturally very fine, was sharpened by the adrenaline roaring through her system; her sight, already eagle-sharp, sharpened further still. Her reactions, honed by years of training under Sister Shakti and now Ciel, were nearly instantaneous, and this enabled her to drop twelve inches and avoid the vampire's attempt to rip her face off. She dropped to her knees and drew her knife in a single motion, thrusting it up and into the soft tissue under the vampire's ribcage, but he was too fast and the knife only penetrated a few inches as he jumped back. Misora rolled with the motion and ended up flat against the opposite wall, perfectly still, hidden by the deep shadows of the unlit hallway. She concentrated on controlling her breathing and trying to remain motionless.

Some small object bounced off of something further down the hallway, but Misora knew it for a trick and remained still. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, then thirty. A full minute rolled around with no sign of movement from the other two people in the hall. Misora's arm was starting to get cramped in its awkward position underneath her, but she knew the first to move would be the first to die.

"Nina...!" Isabella said back in the lobby, her voice betraying the emotional agony she must have felt upon finding one of her best friends dead.

Misora jerked in spite of her best intentions to remain still, and the vampire lunged in almost the same instant. There was the quick blast of a pneumatic piston, and something thudded into the wall six inches above her head as she rolled out of the way to avoid Marlowe's downward strike. His fist went through the floor, accompanied by a metallic clang as he hit the top of the underground bunker that housed the objects Teresa had been set to guard. The pneumatic piston hissed again and something thudded into the vampire's side, and he cried out in rage and agony, a wordless howl of pain as he yanked his mangled hand out of the ruins of the floor.

Misora scrambled to get to her feet, but Marlowe spun around and snagged her by the wrist and flung her at Ciel in one fluid motion. Misora collided with Ciel with a grunt and the two hit the floor in a tangle of arms and legs as Ciel's pilebunker slid off into the darkness. Misora started to move off of her, but Ciel grabbed her arm and squeezed, and Misora froze.

The hallway was deathly quiet, and Isabella, if she was still in the lobby, had gone silent as well. Back to square one.

"Protecting innocents..." Isabella's voice came drifting through the hallway echoing oddly, making it impossible to locate her.

Misora felt Ciel jerk in surprise underneath her, and then she was pushed off as Marlowe drove his clawed hand down into Ciel's midsection before she could get out of the way.

"No!" Misora said, but Marlowe grabbed her by the neck and lifted her high in the air. She pounded on his wrist and kicked futilely in a fruitless attempt to free herself. She couldn't see anything other than vague silhouettes in the shadows of the hallway, but she could see Ciel's body curled up on the floor nearby.

"Destruction of evil..." Isabella's voice continued.

Marlowe slammed Misora's back against the wall, knocking down a nearby picture. He looked around wildly, trying to locate the source of the voice, snarling.

"Defending the land from corruption. These are our duties," Isabella continued.

Misora could barely breathe, and spots were beginning to appear in her vision, but she could tell Isabella was closer, and something in her voice sounded...off. Marlowe let up on the pressure on her neck for a moment, and she gulped in air greedily.

"Stop that!" Marlowe shouted, his voice echoing wildly through the corridor.

"Those who would do evil will not be forgiven," Isabella said.

'_Defintely_ closer,' Misora thought as Marlowe dropped her to focus on the new threat.

"I said _SHUT UP_!" he bellowed. Misora took the opportunity to crawl over to Ciel and check on her.

"How bad is it?" she whispered as quietly as she could.

"You who do evil will not be forgiven," Isabella said.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" Marlowe bellowed as he went further down the hall, away from the two of them.

"...pretty bad," Ciel whispered back, her voice strained. "He got me in the side. Put pressure on this," she said as she took Misora's hand and pressed it against something warm and wet, with a distressingly large hole ripped into it. Misora flinched back initially, but ultimately did as Ciel said. She felt Ciel moving around as the sound of tearing cloth reached her ears. After a moment, Ciel pushed her hand away.

"Make your peace with God, for you are about to meet him," Isabella said.

"What's that all about?" Misora asked.

"The Code of the Defenders," Ciel said stiffly. "Typically recited before facing a dangerous enemy. Isabella thinks she's going to die, and she's probably right. Here, help me up. Did you see my weapon anywhere?"

Misora shook her head, even though Ciel couldn't see it in the dark. "It's too dark. What about-"

"Found you...!" Marlowe said. There was the sound of running footsteps, then someone grunted and Isabella let out a scream of mingled pain and rage, quickly mirrored by a terrified scream from Benedetto, back in the entryway.

"What was that? Did something get that guy?" Misora asked, referring to Ciel's old friend.

"We have to do something about the devils outside," Ciel said professionally as Misora helped her up. They could hear Marlowe's labored, ragged breathing as he struggled with Isabella, surprisingly loud in the darkness.

"I have to help Isabella...! Are you going to be okay?" Misora asked. There was a sudden squelchy sound, and Marlowe barked a short cry in the darkness.

"I don't know," Ciel replied as Misora helped steady her. "You go ahead and help her, I'll go try to keep the devils out of the building," she said as she staggered away in the shadows of the hallway, using the wall as a support.

"Wait Ciel! How am I supposed to help her? I can't even see!" Misora whispered loudly.

"You're a big girl, use your imagination," Ciel replied from the darkness ahead.

"Ciel? Ciel!" Ciel didn't reply, and Misora found herself alone. 'Great. Juuuust great,' she thought. Now, to help Isabella and somehow not die. 'I need a weapon. Weapon...weapon...' She patted her pockets, looking for anything she could use. The two knives she normally carried were both missing; she must have forgotten to secure the sheathes again... She continued searching. 'Some change, my wallet, the key for the Vespa...wait.' She took out her wallet and fumbled around with it for a moment before pulling out her license. It was made of some kind of hard plastic. Perhaps it could be used to cut...? The key, too. She had killed ghouls and devils with less threatening items, but this enemy was a powerful vampire, much stronger than any enemy she had ever faced before. What had Ciel called him? A 'Great Vampire Lord'? She had never heard the term before, but it sounded pretty important. Were vampires ranked like devils? She didn't know, but it didn't seem likely. Vampires were people too, they weren't as single-minded or lacking in personality as the average devil seemed to be.

Marlowe suddenly let out a horrible scream and Misora jumped.

"Make your peace with God, for you are about to meet him!" Isabella screamed. "Practe Bigi Nar, Ardescat!"

The hallway was lit by a burst of fire, revealing Marlowe, pinned to the wall through the stomach with a short sword, and a beaten and bloody Isabella, barely able to stand, building an unstable fireball bigger and bigger.

"You killed Nina! You killed Marie two years ago! You killed everyone!" Isabella screamed, her voice hoarse and the look in her eyes unsteady. "You're going to die!" she yelled as she left the unstable fireball floating in place and rushed forward to throw her arms around the struggling vampire's torso, knocking him off balance back against the wall just as he freed himself from the sword. Suddenly, Misora knew exactly what the girl was about to do.

Misora screamed for her to stop, knowing it was already too late as the fireball wobbled, bulged, and exploded in a massive blast of fire. She had a brief glimpse of Isabella flinging Marlowe off balance so he couldn't escape, and then Isabella was opening her mouth to scream as the flames engulfed the two.

The whole building shook with the blast, and Misora was thrown back against the wall where the hall took a turn, silently thanking her extensive training for the body reinforcement spell she had thrown up without even thinking. Even so, the impact had been brutal, and floating blobs of light moved in and out of her vision, interfering with her sight. Had there not been a support beam there, she likely would have gone through the wall. She hurt all over, and her first attempt to stand up left her sprawled on the rubble that had been one of the interior walls.

She staggered up, trying not to look directly at the fire that was now raging in the dorm. Something collapsed nearby, and she realized the whole place was about to come down. She pulled herself up and leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath. Her head felt fuzzy, and everything sounded muffled. Isabella...she had sacrificed herself to ensure the vampire's destruction. Why? Why would she do such a thing? If you ran away, there was always a chance to fight again later, why would Isabella do something so, so _stupid_? She stumbled forward over the debris that littered the hall and made her way to the center of the destruction caused by the fireball. The ceiling had collapsed here and temporarily put out the fire, but too much was burning nearby for that to last. She climbed over the piles of debris and continued on to where she had last seen her friend, where she fell to her knees and began digging, pulling chunks of wood and plaster aside.

She found her perhaps thirty seconds later.

She was badly burned, the beautiful hair that Misora had secretly been jealous of burned almost completely away, her beautiful skin horribly scorched, forever ruining her face. Isabella's eyes flickered open and Misora barely managed to hold back the contents of her stomach.

"Who is it?" the girl asked in a dry, crackly voice.

"It...it's me, Isabella, Misora," Misora barely managed to get out.

"I can't see..."

Misora's stomach lurched again. "I-it's okay, don't worry about it," she said soothingly. "It's...it's really dark here," she lied.

"Oh..." Isabella replied. She tried to move, groaned, and stopped right away.

"I probably shouldn't have done that," she said after a moment. "With the fire."

"P-probably nuh-not," Misora replied, her voice catching as she tried to keep from sobbing. 'Oh, Isabella...'

"I...I wanted...I..." Isabella's voice trailed off as she weakened. "I..."

"Don't worry about it, Isabella, don't worry!" Misora said frantically. "It'll all be okay, you'll see! Just...just you and me and, and Nina. We'll get you two to a hospital and...and a doctor...a doctor will...Isabella? Isabella?" She paused a moment, gave the burned girl a shake. "Isabella? Isabella! A-answer me Isabella! Come on, you have to answer me! You have to...you...you can't..." Misora trailed off and looked down at the other girl. "...Isabella...?" she asked quietly as she reached down and lightly touched the other girl's face. Some burned tissue sloughed off and she dropped Isabella's body and retched.

After a moment, something moved in the rubble behind her and she lurched to her feet, almost stumbling over Isabella as she did so.

The vampire's arm moved and pushed a piece of the collapsed wall aside. Misora backed away warily as Marlowe pulled himself halfway out of the rubble before stopping, gasping for breath and shivering violently as his body tried to undo the extensive damage from the fireball.

He reached out blindly, grabbed Isabella's arm, and pulled, and something in Misora's mind snapped. Her lips curled into a snarl as she strode over and kicked his hand away.

"Don't _touch_ her!"

"Misora..." the vampire said consideringly. "You will be the next—urk," he said, cut off when Misora's boot hit his head.

"Don't say my name, _monster_," she spat. A large section of the second story floor collapsed nearby, but Misora just looked down at the vampire in fury.

"You won't be so proud when I have finished regenerating," Marlowe said. "I will drain every drop of blood from your body, and then go after that trainer of yours. Then again, I could also make you my slave; it has been some time since I last had one, and you look like you would be...suitable for my needs," he said, sneering at her through his pain.

Misora just looked down at him. Somehow, he was no longer frightening. Maybe it was his blackened, peeling skin, maybe his scorched hair, maybe it was the fact that he was trapped under just a few hundred pounds of debris and yet couldn't free himself, she didn't know. But whatever it was, she saw him for the easy target he was. This guy was _nothing_ like Eva-chan.

"Heh..."

"What? What are you laughing at?" he demanded.

Misora just looked at him for a moment. She stepped up and absently kicked him in the head, eliciting another grunt from him.

"You don't dare-!"

"Shut up," Misora said as she absently looked down at her boots, the so-called Seven League Boots. Quite an amazing artifact, when one got down to it. Oh, she had been so utterly _stupid_ to think they were only good for running away...! They could be used in many ways; from jumping huge distances to making innumerable tiny leaps to give the impression of running quickly, to a decent copy of the flash-step, there were many uses. But one she had never really considered until now, one she had only ever noted idly during after-battle damage reports, was the effect that using the boots had on the launch platform. Her first hint at the destructive power of her artifact had been when she had been chasing that little flying devil months ago, and had used the roof of a small car as a launchpad.

The car had been all but flattened, she recalled as she looked down at the trapped vampire. Of course, it had taken until this very moment for her to realize that the boots didn't actually give the power to jump far, but rather, the ability to generate a lot of directed force. It was all just a matter of compensating correctly...

Something exploded and rocked the building, and walls collapsed here and there. Misora just looked down at the vampire, then moved to stand on the rubble above his chest.

"What are you doing?" he asked, but she didn't reply.

"Protecting innocents, destruction of evil..." she said.

"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about!" Marlowe screamed.

"Defending the land from corruption. These are our duties," Misora continued. How had the rest of that gone...?

Marlowe began struggling in earnest, his charred skin cracking and tearing painfully as a result.

"Those who do evil will not be forgiven. You who do evil will not be forgiven."

Marlowe gave one last mighty heave and almost rose out of the rubble. Misora kicked him in the neck.

"Make your peace with God, for you are about to meet him," Misora finished. All it took was careful control of directed force, and the ability to compensate for the recoil...

"No! Get away from me, get away-"

Misora knelt down, looked the Great Vampire Lord Dexter Marlowe in the eye, and smiled.

* * *

Marco waded into the battle, enchanted sword spilling smoking devils' guts and blood on the pavement as he went, followed by every fighter his people could dig up in short order. They were a mismatched crew wearing a mishmash of clothing and armor, some bearing the symbol of the Guardian Agency, some bearing the symbol of the Special Exorcism Agency, still others bearing the symbols of more mundane groups, but they fought with a will, and that was all that Marco needed. These men and women, many in competing organizations, were all working together, united under his command, many for the first time, and they had an important job to do. A vampire had infiltrated the church, enthralled its honest followers and led them to heresy, enslaved some, killed others, and now had set free an army of devils in the heart of Rome itself.

They had fought their way up both sides of the street, making sure to not let a single devil past, when the building they were heading for shook with a huge explosion. The devils in front of the building squealed and ran into the swords of Marco and his knights, who gladly took advantage of the opportunity.

"The target building is on fire, Bishop!" one of the men said. Marco just nodded as he gutted another devil and kept moving on.

"We fight on. We must do what we can for those living there," he stated.

"Yes sir!"

* * *

Ciel sat on the floor, leaning back against the couch Teresa still sat on.

"Huh...look at the two of us. We're pretty pathetic, aren't we?" she asked her old rival as she carefully peeled back her makeshift bandage. She frowned as she looked at the wound in her side.

"Heh...y-you're right," Teresa said wetly. "Don't make me laugh, it hurts too much," she murmured a moment later.

Ciel heard a pained grunt from the far hallway over the sound of the fire that threatened to consume the building. For now the fire seemed to be concentrated in the western half of the building, but it would spread here before too long.

"Arrrrgh...dammit..." someone muttered.

Ciel thought the voice was familiar, but she felt too lightheaded to think, and couldn't place the voice until the man pulled himself upright using the shattered remains of poor Rachele's desk.

"Nico," Ciel said tiredly, nodding.

"Ciel, Teresa," he said hoarsely in return as he leaned on the wall. He looked around and spotted Nina. "Dammit. Aren't we all a beautiful sight?" He coughed raggedly, spraying almost as much blood as Teresa had earlier as he struggled to stay upright. "Dammit..."

"I guess Isabella died," Ciel said absently after a moment. She knew in a disconnected sort of way that she was likely going into shock, or perhaps she was simply bleeding out. The wound in her side was a mess, and her head felt weird and fuzzy.

"Probably," Teresa said sadly. Nico muttered another 'dammit' from across the room, and Ciel realized the old mercenary was probably bleeding out too.

"You haven't moved since you got that knife in your gut. You aren't paralyzed, are you?" Ciel asked absently as she watched multicolored blobs float around the room.

"Can't take it out like this or I'll die," Teresa muttered. "Too weak to move, really."

"Yeah," Ciel said as she fumbled with her bandage.

One of the devils that had been lurking around the doorway finally decided to step into the building. It put a clawed hand on each side of the door frame and poked its head in cautiously, looking around. It spotted Ciel and Teresa at the couch and snarled, showing far too many teeth. It took one step into the room, then another, and paused, sniffing the air.

Ciel picked up a knife that one of the girls had dropped on the floor earlier and held it out in front of her clumsily, her arm weak and shaky. Nico staggered toward the devil, but it daintily sidestepped and swatted him aside. He hit the wall with a wooden crack and collapsed, growling in pain.

The devil approached carefully and reached out slowly, almost tenderly, and smacked Ciel's hand, knocking the knife away. It stepped closer and leaned over her, sniffing. It grinned toothily again and bent down to bite into her face when it was swept aside violently in a spray of blood, and a familiar face looked down at her.

Ciel looked up at the man groggily for a moment, unable to process what she was seeing. "...Bishop Costa...?"

"Don't worry, child. We will take care of these beasts," he said pleasantly.

"Mishora's in there," Ciel slurred, pointing toward the burning hallway. "'N you hav'ta help T'resa. An' Nico," she said weakly as her tension bled away.

Marco smiled down at her. "Don't worry about that; we have several of the best healers in the church with us." He waited a moment to see they were taken care of, and had just started toward the burning hallway when a shockwave blasted through the building, causing a sizable piece of the rear to collapse spectacularly.

"Evacuate the building! Bring out the injured!" Marco bellowed as he rushed into the hallway.

* * *

Misora lay there in the ruins, sheer agony coursing throughout her whole body, as she watched the splattered remains of Dexter Marlowe. Her idea had worked far too well, it seemed. The impact of the shockwave on her body in the confines of the hallway...she coughed and wiped some of the blood from her mouth. Stupid main support columns...she had smashed into it because she hadn't properly controlled the recoil. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

"Should've thought about that," she said weakly. It felt like her guts had been scrambled. She had used too much power, too. A simple kick would've torn his head off and ended it then and there, but she had just _had_ to make a big production out of it and stomp the stupid idiot's chest with both feet...

She took another look at Marlowe. Definitely dead, and that was for the best. Poor Isabella lay partially buried by debris off to the side.

"Sorry Isabella, I couldn't help you. Hey, at least I killed the bad guy though, right?" she said as her mind wandered. "Looks like a zombie...vampire...thing... He came apart, haha..." she said, idly poking a chunk of the vampire's flesh that lay within reach.

She was more unconscious than awake when Bishop Costa came into the hallway and picked her up as if she weighed no more than a feather. She looked up at him, her mind foggy, and giggled lightly. She thought she saw Nina and Isabella behind him, looking over his shoulder. It was weird, and for some reason hugely amusing.

"Heheh...See? Told you it'd be fine," she said as she slipped into unconsciousness. She thought she heard Isabella say 'Idiot', which made Nina laugh. She smiled.

* * *

Misora was in the hospital for almost a week before she regained consciousness, and when she did, the numerous aches and pains from the bruises and broken bones almost made her want to fall unconscious again. Instead, she settled for a low moan. She had been in the middle of a nice dream, where she was having a picnic with all her friends, and Cocone was jealous of Nina, and it was really funny...

"Congratulations on surviving a fight with one of the most powerful vampires around," someone said nearby.

Misora opened her eyes and looked around groggily. "Ugh."

"Don't force yourself. You broke half the bones in your body and almost reduced your insides to pulp with that stunt. You are lucky to be alive."

Misora finally managed to focus on the location of the voice. "...Bishop...?"

Marco nodded and smiled slightly. "You shouldn't do things like that, you know. If you had made the smallest mistake, you could have ended up in low earth orbit, or left in as many interesting pieces as that vampire. As it was, you did something we once thought impossible: you broke one of our vaults."

"Vault?"

The one Agent Teresa was guarding. You cracked the roof; quite a feat, let me assure you."

Misora turned her head and looked up at the ceiling as she fumbled with a small gray device with a big button. "Isabella?" she asked as she pushed the self-medication button.

The man's tone changed abruptly. "I'm sorry."

"N...Nina?" she asked as tears started to flow.

"...I am sorry," Marco said quietly. She pressed the button again, but nothing happened.

"The other girls? Karina? I...I saw her on the stairs..."

Marco shook his head sadly. "I am sorry."

"C-Ciel Sempai? Teresa? Nico?"

"Ah, now those three are survivors," he said jovially, trying to take her mind off of her losses.

"Where are they? Are they going to be all right?" Misora asked, clinging frantically to the last few people she trusted here.

"Settle down, Misora. They are in private rooms here in the hospital, receiving the best of care. You and I have much to discuss when you recover."

"What do you mean?" Misora asked woozily as the painkillers started taking effect and her mind abruptly began to wander. Ooh, pretty colors.

"We have discovered the existence of a collection of old prophecies, several of which involve you personally," Marco said, sitting down in a nearby chair. "Regrettably, the man who made the original discovery, Benedetto Mancini, was...ah...'removed' by devils before we could save him. His research into the prophecies, however, has proven invaluable."

"Removed? Ciel-sempai hit him with her...her big...metal...thing. Wait...prophecies?" The reflection of light on that...shiny...thing...on the table was really...really...neat...must be the medication kicking in.

"Suffice to say, when you recover, you will have a lot to do, Misora. Congratulations, you have been promoted to head of the newly formed Special Investigations Team, Mundus Magicus branch. Now," he said, grinning down at her. "Get some sleep. You will need it."

"...wow..." Misora said sleepily as she pressed the button a third time. "That might be fun..." ...light fixture...

"It will be the toughest task you have ever undertaken," Marco said pleasantly. "Even worse than fighting off an army of devils led by a high level vampire. Don't worry Misora, everything will be taken care of."

"...that's good..." Misora said as she nodded off. It looked like her life was going to get interesting. But...she had lost two of the best friends she had ever had. She had wanted to take Isabella and Nina back to Japan to meet Cocone and everybody, but that would never happen now. She hurt too much all over to wipe the tears from her eyes, but that was okay. She could undergo a little more discomfort.

'Head of the Special Investigations Team, huh?' she thought as she slipped off to sleep. There would be months of recovery and therapy first, and she had wanted to go back to Mahora to help Negi with whatever it was that that Fate kid had in store for him in the magic world, but...she had a feeling things would be okay. It looked like she would be part of a much bigger adventure soon.

* * *

_Author's Notes_: _And so ends this story. So, how was it? This chapter was a lot longer than I wanted it to be, but I guess that's just how it works out sometimes, huh? Anyway, Misora is now in a position of authority...scary, isn't it? And what's the deal with that prophecy, anyway?_

_In any case, there will be a shorter story about Ku Fei next, and then Still Waters 3 will start. Probably. Thanks for reading!_


End file.
